Fleas Biting

The Adoptee Rights Demonstration

2008-06-09T19:55:00.000-07:00

A group of adult adoptees has planned a protest for adoptee rights to take place at the National Conference of State Legislature’s annual meeting in New Orleans, LA on Tuesday, July 22, 2008. The National Conference of State Legislatures is a bipartisan organization that serves state legislators and its staffs.

The purpose of the protest is for adoptees representing all fifty states to hold a rally to demonstrate their commitment to adoptee rights, including unconditional open records for adult adoptees, and to meet their state delegation.

Everyone who supports the open records movement, adoptees, first families, adoptive families, friends and supporters, are welcome to join the protest.

Complete information about the event is at The Adoptee Rights Demonstration website.

Usha

Workshop 2.3: Adoptee Access to Records, History and Searches: Adopted People and the “Right to Know”

2008-06-09T19:53:00.000-07:00

Ethics and Accountability Conference
Sponsored by Ethica and Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute
October 15-16, 2007

Bullet points for discussion during Workshop 2.3:

How do current laws and practices support or impede adopted persons’ access to information about themselves?
What “rights” should adopted persons have to such information? How should their “rights” be balanced against those of other parties to an adoption?
How should access to records and history, as well as search, be thought about from an international perspective?

Panelists:

Frederick F. Greenman, Jr. is the legal advisor and former Director to the American Adoption Congress. He is also the Treasurer and a director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. A prominent adoption activist, he was the senior counsel to amici curiae in the historic case, Doe v. Sundquist, which upheld the 1995 Tennessee Adoption Act. He also assisted counsel in the Oregon litigation, Does v. Oregon, that upheld the ballot initiative and statute in that state which granted adoptees access to their original birth certificates. Mr. Greenman has participated in various state and federal lobbying efforts, most recently concerning ratification and implementation of the Hague Convention on International Adoption. His interest in the subject stems from having surrendered a daughter for adoption at her birth and with whom he reunited 15 years ago. Mr. Greenman, a Harvard graduate, currently is a sole practitioner specializing in copyright related litigation in addition to issues relating to adoption reform.

Marley Greiner is the co-founder and executive chair of Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization, the largest adoptee rights organization in North American. Ms. Greiner’s work has focused on the right of all adult adoptees to access their original birth certificates upon request without restriction. She was actively involved in Ballot Measure 58 in Oregon and legislation in Alabama and New Hampshire which restored the right of adult adoptees to access their original birth certificates. Ms. Greiner also is considered an expert on “safe haven” laws. Since 2001, she has published and edited Baby Dump News, a weekly e-chronicle of newborn abandonment and neonaticide. Ms. Greiner’s additional adoption interests include the relationship between adoption and Biblical America and the portrayal of adoption in film. She maintains the blog, The Daily Bastardette . Ms. Greiner holds a BA in English and Political Science from Malone College, and an MA in American History from the Ohio State University.

Pam Hasegawa, born Rolande Sygne Hampden, has been involved with adoption reform since joining ALMA (Adoptees’ Liberty MovementAssociation) in 1973, NJCARE (NJ Coalition for Adoption Reform and Education) in 1991 and the American Adoption Congress in 1996. Her commitment to rectifying the injustice imposed by the sealed records system on persons living adoption keeps her involved as a grass-roots lobbyist and adoption educator. The “letter to the editor” has become her favorite genre; presenting experiential workshops for adoption professionals and parents with Betsy Forrest and Penny Partridge is an ongoing delight; and working with younger members of the adoption constellation who commit their hearts, minds and energy to adoption reform is a constant source of joy for her. She has been sustained in the long journey toward truth, both personal and communal, by the grace of God, deep friendships forged out of a common understanding of the need for truth in adoption and her family’s abiding support for her work as a “professional volunteer” in the adoption arena.

Elizabeth Samuels is a professor of law at the University of Baltimore School of Law, where she teaches courses in the areas of constitutional law and family law. She is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Chicago Law School. The subjects of her research and publications include the history of adult adoptees access to original birth records and the current state of laws governing mothers’ consents to the adoption of their newborn infants. Her public service activities includes consulting with adoption law reform advocates as well as other civil rights work.

Elizabeth Samuels

Elizabeth Samuels covered the history of adult adoptees’ access to their own records. Her theory is that it helps us to understand where we are if we understand how we got here. She became interested in this subject because her sister relinquished a child and they met when her birth niece became an adult. She wondered why it was thought beneficial to make records closed. To her amazement, it hadn’t been thought beneficial for adult adoptees and there were different reasons that had led to the closing of records.

Statutory adoption is relatively recent historically. The first state adoption statute was in the mid-1800s. It wasn’t until the 1920s that essentially all states developed a statutory process for adoption. Initially, all records were open. In the early 1900s there was a movement among the states to protect the privacy of the participants i.e., confidentiality (closing records to the public). In the 1930s and 1940s states began moving toward the amended birth certificate where the child was documented as having been “born to” the adoptive parents. It was also during this time that states began sealing records not just from pubic inspection but from inspection by the parties: adoptive parents and birth parents. The primary reason was to protect adoptive families from interference or harassment from birth families. Surrender papers during this time contained promises not to seek out the child or harass the adoptive family. Adoptive parents, on the other hand, were often given documents with identifying information.

In 1953, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws developed the first uniform adoption act recommended to states. They clearly recommended that court and birth certificate records be closed to the public and parties but that they should be accessible to adult adoptees and they were in most states at that time. And as late as 1960 in more than half the states, adults adopted as children still had access to records with identifying information. After 1960, 4 states closed records to adoptees, 6 in 1970s and 7 did not close until after 1979. Even in closed states, records could be opened by court order without notice to or participation by birth parents.

Obviously there was a huge change in attitudes from the 1950s to 1970s. Why? There were a complex confluence of factors that led to this result with no easy answers:

Closing of records to public and parents helped create and endorse the idea that secrecy was a normal part of the process

Post- WWII emphasis on women fulfilling traditional roles: staying home and having lots of children

Psychoanalytic idea at least for young white unmarried women that they were suffering from a mental and moral disorder that led to their pregnancy that could be cured if they placed the child with a “normal” family

Emerging idea that adult adopted persons who were interested in finding out about their origins were also suffering from a mental disorder.

Nowadays, substantial numbers of adult adoptees find out information outside of the government though many spend years and resources doing so. Looking at this history, it’s a relatively short period that adoptees have not had access. It was really an experiment that has proven more harmful than beneficial.

Marley Greiner

There are a number of reasons why original birth certificates of adoptees remained sealed in all but a handful of states:

Well-funded industry lobbies such as the National Council for Adoption

Powerful marginal lobbies such as the National Right to Life Committee, Family Research Council, ACLU, Planned Parenthood and various feminists who believe adult adoptee identity rights endanger their own social and political agendas

Politically influential adoptive and birth parents

Reactionary and back scratching politicians

Political lethargy

Right to identity and public records have no traction in the political landscape unless they intersect with high priority issues such as abortion or privacy rights and then they intersect only negatively. Adoptees are expected to shut up and be grateful for allegedly being made middle class and not tossed in a dumpster or reared in a trailer park. Those who press for records access are blamed for “disappearing adoption privacy rights”. “Adoptees are destroying adoption.”

Adoption reformers continue to defeat themselves by compliantly accepting less than what they want: baby steps that lock out people. They feel that compromise is progress, something is better than nothing. But there is no precedent for these bad laws to be changed later. Compromisers tend to legitimate and frame their arguments in the ideology and language of the opposition. They accept the faulty social construct of the triad and its false doctrine of competing rights, balanced rights and special rights. Without the core ethic of an absolute right to birth certificates and identity for all adoptees, reformers support institutional protectionism. Their compromise is obstruct rights and information for all and the opportunity for reunion for those who seek it.

Leave no one behind. 10 years ago Bastard Nation was founded on the guiding principle that access to original birth certificates, identity and history is a natural right, not a privilege doled out by the state. Reasons for wanting birth certificates are immaterial because they are based on desire not the right to possess them and the unredacted information in them. We have the right to the facts of our births, origins and adoptions. Adoptions were imposed and contracted upon us without our knowledge and consent by the state, then that same state seals our information and refuses to acknowledge our right to that information or even that we existed prior to our adoptions. The non-adopted need not justify why they want their vital records nor are they forced to ask for their parents’ permission, grovel before a judge, join a government registry, seek mental health counseling or spend years getting a bill passed to get them. They have a presumed right to their own birth certificates and can do with them what they please. All arguments for access then must flow from the presumed right of all adoptees to unrestricted access and possession of their true birth certificates, not just the majority class. Otherwise the right of anyone to possess their own birth certificates is not a right but a favor the state grants to some.

The real issue therefore moves from personal desire to political rights and adoptees’ relation to the state. Who owns your identity, you or the state? In Oregon, two years after Bastard Nation (BN) was founded, it had its first victory with the passage of Ballot Measure 58, in which the people decided that Oregon adoptees had a right to their own birth certificates. When BN initiated the campaign, adoption reformers wrung their hands and said “you’ll throw us back 20 years!” They forgot to mention in their 20 years of activisim they had failed to open one single state to full access and in fact had mucked things up so badly with compromise legislation such as contractual birth parent disclosure vetos and tiered access that it will be virtually impossible to gain unrestricted access in those states without major league wrangling, if ever.

BN's victory in Oregon was followed by legislative restoration in Alabama in 2000 which was BN's bill and New Hampshire in 2005 where BN worked with others to pass unrestricted access. Earlier this year folks in Maine unconnected to Bastard Nation who previously considered compromise got a clean bill passed which will open records for all in 2009. Exact figures are unavailable, but since at least 1999, at least 14,000 adoptees have received their birth certificates under the Just Say No to Compromise Policy. Holding the line works. Conversely, compromise legislation slugs endlessly through the pipeline amended out of recognition in a vague attempt to please an unpleasable opposition that insists the status quo continue ad infinitum.

False triad concept. Adoptee rights advocates are bogged down with the concept of the adoption triad: the first parents, the adoptive parents and Baybee Bumble, the adoptee, all of whom allegedly have competing rights that must be balanced. Translation: adoptees lose. The triad characterizes the entire adoption structure as a nuclear unit; in reality, it hides information as well as people: for example, grandparents, cousins, siblings, fosterers, and institutions central to the adoption experience -- agencies, social workers, facilitators, marketers, politicians and the marketplace. There are a myriad of complicated relational permutations concealed by “the triad.” Once the other actors are introduced, we see hidden power relationships based on chronology of events, economics, class gender, race, market demand and other factors. The triad concept moved from a sociological to a political discourse where it became manipulated by those living below the water line: private business, adoption professionals and their government security force: the state which ultimately defines what adoption is and can force its will on the rest of us. For example, first mothers were morphed from threat to the adoptive family to courageous women who need protection from their adult offspring. In response, the state and the adoptocrasy colluded to develop an aggressive claim of bureaucratic promises to first mothers asserting that their anonymity is protected by sealed records, thus creating a new privacy right which has nothing to do with privacy. When documented evidence of these promises or even the desire for them was not forthcoming, the adoptocrasy countered that although there was nothing in writing, promises are implied.

These and other claims to make records sealed are ludicrous. Surrender does not equal adoption. Privacy and confidentiality do not equal anonymity nor do sealed birth records. Under normal circumstances, competitive rights and their balancing is a problem only when there are a conflict of rights. Since there is no right to anonymity to one’s own offspring and there is a presumed to one’s own birth certificate, there is nothing to balance except in the minds of the secret keepers. What adoptocrats really want when they toss around competing rights, implied promises and confidentiality is protection from their commercial misdeeds and their continued control over other people’s personal information. This is all about institutional power. The false doctrine of competitive balance, special rights discourse foisted by the below the water line players on the above the water line people most affected by adoption is a false flag operation. Ron Morgan in his essay “Adoption is a Five-Legged Stool” writes: “The beauty of the Triad, at least to the fourth and fifth leg, is that it renders their agency invisible. The state and its quasi-agents, the professional adoption class, can float divinely over the pell mell and gore, offering definitive commentary and altering the rules of the game. It's a tidy racket."

This tidy racket played out in Massachusetts recently when a reform organization packed with a professional adoption class rejected a clean bill and accepted a replacement pushed by politicians and a handful of adoptees that restored the right of access to some, keeps all future records open, but continues to seal the records of other adoptees between certain dates in order to protect the privacy rights of first parents who surrendered children between those dates. By doing so, reformers legitimated implied promises of confidentiality debunked years ago; a lie they insist we must respect. The message is clear: adoptees have no genuine right to their birth certificates or their personal information even their advocates agree.

The triad with its plea for balanced rights forces compromise and corrupts the core principle of adoptee rights to records, identity and autonomy. Without an ethical cannon of absolute inclusion and no compromise, the rights of adoptees will continue to be balkanized and adoptees will continue to be treated as a separate class undeserving of their own records.

Records access is a social justice issue and I think it needs to be framed that way.

Audience Discussion

What are the impacts of current laws that impede access?:

Lack of medical history

Not being able to have a copy of one’s own original birth certificate impedes knowing ethnic and religious heritage

Files are different. Agency has one file, the government has its own files. The files are different or incomplete. Information is selectively edited.

Inability to verify one’s own birth day, county in which one was born, lack of historical truth.

In a private adoption, there is a record the lawyer has which is more likely to be thrown out earlier than a record in an agency.

A lot of adoptees have problems getting passports. Person whose birth certificate is filed more than one year after birth can’t use that birth certificate as appropriate evidence.

Closed records create a market for information because information is restricted.

Information can be sold to those who can afford it or have connections to get it. That unequal access is unjust.

Adoptees say it makes them feel like second class citizens, perpetual children.

Totally discriminatory including within the adoption community, for example, foster children generally have access and some international adoptees arrive with their original birth certificates.

Impedes access for future generations.

Impedes guarantee of ethical practices.

Those in open adoption say they have their children’s birth records, but if something happens to them, can’t get them back.

Siblings do not know they are siblings. Possibility of incest being permitted.

In international context, if government doesn’t keep records and agency destroys records, then there are no records. In Hague regulations, all open access provisions are governed by state laws in the US. So if adoptee comes from abroad into a state with closed records, then that record gets closed even if the Convention gives access.

What are ways to make changes?

adopteerights.net is having a nationwide demonstration in New Orleans on July 22, 2008 to coincide with the National Conference of State Legislators.

The American Adoption Congress has a legislative packet that is helpful.

When any kind of law comes up about adoption, one can testify as a citizen. At least write a letter. In off years try to form relationships with representatives.

From Ethica’s standpoint, people who oppose opening records have a sophisticated way of notifying all their supporters when a bill is coming up and they flood legislators with calls. There is potential to tap into the adoptive parent and other supporter communities who believe this is not right. We can work together to come up with a similar system to flood legislators with calls.

Fred Greenman

Several things have developed to deal with mothers who don’t want their identity known. Oregon and three other states have contact preference forms. In a closed adoption, a birth mother has no assurance or warning she will not be found. The only case of harassment he is aware of occurred in New York which has the most tightly sealed records. If her child wants contact and records are opened, all statutes set a minimum age of at least 18 – her feelings may change over time which is what typically happens. In states with contact preference forms, the experience has been no reported problems.

Current state of law regarding adoption access statutes. Originally had 48 closed records states (all but Kansas and Alaska). 6 have granted access. 4 of them subject to a contact preference form. Delaware has a disclosure veto -- 19 filed in entire state since 1999. In 1996, Tennessee because the first state to retroactively open records. Birth certificates had false or meaningless info because of Georgia Tann, so the Tennessee statute gave access to entire adoption file. In another 12 states, access to original birth certificates or identifying information depends on the year of birth based on the argument that birth mothers were promised confidentiality. A number of states have a confidential intermediary system.

The whole process of secrecy starts mechanically with the original birth certificate and sealing and alteration of it into an amended birth certificate which shows the adoptive parents as simply the parents. This practice was started in 1928 by Georgia Tann who was perhaps the most notorious baby thief. She sold at least 5,000 children and at one time was the most prominent adoption practitioner in the country. She is the origin of this problem.

All these varying systems are for better or for worse constitutional in the US.

Ontario passed a statute which granted retroactive access to identifying information to adoptees and birth parents. There was a decision holding that statute unconstitutional. Not clear if ruling will be appealed. The ruling is weak because in Ontario, adoptive parents have always had access to original birth certificates and one plaintiff is a birth father. Paternity suits are not defended on grounds of privacy.

Usha

Risks of Umbrellaing

2008-05-20T20:58:00.000-07:00

A recent court decision illustrates how an agency in an umbrella relationship with other agencies is able to successfully contractually wash its hands of liability for the actions and inactions of its subcontractors in the U.S. and abroad.

The Case
Jon and Trisha Smith filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio against the adoption agency Island Coast International Adoption (ICIA) after they were unsuccessful in adopting twins from India. The Smiths waited several years for the adoption process to be completed and paid more than $20,000 to the agency. The Smiths filed suit seeking damages for breach of contract, fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

In early 2004, the Smiths learned about the twins available for adoption in India and contacted ICIA. ICIA coordinated with International Families, Inc. (IFI), described in the court decision as ICIA’s “affiliated agency,” which was licensed to perform adoptions in India. The Smiths signed their contract with ICIA and paid three installments to ICIA totaling $3,750 plus a “country fee” of $20,500 which was forwarded to IFI. The “country fee” was used to cover the services performed by IFI as well as government and attorney costs in India.

The twins resided in an orphanage called Peace Home. Peace was licensed by CARA but its license expired in June 2004. IFI’s license with CARA had also expired and was not immediately renewed. In March 2005, Peace’s license was renewed, but its renewal was backdated to June 2004 because the license was valid for only one year. The license expired in June 2005. IFI was unable to process the adoption of the twins by June 2005.

Through 2004 and 2005, ICIA provided the Smiths with updates on the license renewal process, offered to allow them to switch countries and offered them a partial refund of the $3,750 that was paid to ICIA. The Smiths declined. The Smiths raised three claims against ICIA.

1. Breach of Contract Claim

The Smiths alleged that ICIA breached their contract because ICIA failed to properly coordinate the adoption process, and failed to accurately communicate with the Smiths and adoption officials in India. The Court disagreed and noted how the contract language did not support the Smith’s position. The contract included a description that ICIA’s fees may have covered coordination with foreign officials and with its foreign facilitator. According to the Court, “the plain language of this section clearly placed Plaintiffs on notice that Defendant would be working with others in India to complete the adoption. This only makes sense.” Further, the contract identified the specific services ICIA was required to perform which included, “locating the child, referring the child to the clients, and initiating the contact with the foreign orphanage and the affiliated agency.” Again, the Court found the contract clearly contemplated that Defendant would be working with other agencies in India and so ICIA’s coordination with them was both expected and appropriate.

The Smiths also argued that ICIA did not act in good faith when coordinating and communicating with IFI because ICIA did not have first-hand knowledge of the specific tasks undertaken by IFI and because IFI, not ICIA, was charged with coordinating the adoption process with Indian officials. In short, the Court stated, “Plaintiffs seek to blame Defendant for the failings of IFI, but Defendant had no contractual duty to deal directly with Indian officials. Nor do Plaintiffs allege, let alone show, that Defendant is responsible for any failure of IFI. There was no contract prohibition to subcontract services to Indian agencies or that Plaintiffs pre-approve working with those agencies. Indeed, contract language summarized above contemplated quite the opposite.” The Court ruled that there was no showing of lack of good faith. Rather, “[t]o the contrary, the evidence shows Defendant performed the services required by the contract and continuously acted in good faith, providing Plaintiffs with numerous updates on the status of the adoption.”

2. Fraud Claim

The Smiths alleged that ICIA made repeated misrepresentations about the status of the adoption process and its relationship with IFI. The Court found that ICIA sent several emails and made numerous phone calls to the Smiths (which satisfied two elements needed to establish a fraud claim), but the Smiths failed to show that ICIA’s statements were knowingly false or made with a reckless disregard for the truth or with the intent to mislead. Although ICIA passed along false statements to the Smiths, the Court pointed out that the Smiths had to prove not just falsity, but also actual knowledge or reckless behavior. According to the Court, ICIA “justifiably relied on statements made by IFI because of past dealings and successful adoptions. Defendant reasonably believed them to be true, even if they are eventually proven to be false.”

3. Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress Claim

In order to recover for intentional infliction of emotional distress, a plaintiff in Ohio must establish several elements including “extreme” and “outrageous” conduct. The only “extreme and outrageous” conduct identified by the Smiths was that ICIA sent them pictures of the twins after the Smiths demanded that ICIA cease all contact with them. Although ICIA’s conduct may have “added, indeed aggravated, Plaintiffs’ disappointment,” the Court found that its actions fell significantly short of going “beyond all bounds of decency” or being “utterly intolerable.”

4. The Court’s Ruling

The Court granted ICIA’s motion for summary judgment on all three legal theories stating, “The Court recognizes there is much heartache that can accompany an unsuccessful adoption. Plaintiffs’ desire to be parents and raise children is clearly strong and commendable. However, there simply is no contract breach, fraud or intentional misconduct by Defendant who likewise wanted very much to bring these children in Plaintiffs’ lives.”

Important Facts Not Included in the Opinion

There is important background information that is not included in the Court’s opinion:

1. Peace Home’s licensing history

Peace’s license did not simply expire. According to a report by Sujata Mody from the Malarchi Women’s Resource Center in Chennai, “From Adoption Agencies and Institutional Practices in Tamil Nadu,” Peace was hurriedly issued a license by CARA at the behest of the Secretary of Social Welfare in 2003. The usual requirement is that an adoption agency must be registered for at least three years before it can be licensed to perform international adoptions.

Peace was inspected on October 10, 2002 and had five babies, one of which was a 13-day old infant for which there were no records. Authorities from the Department of Social Welfare observed that Peace had made insufficient efforts to identify Indian parents and had made insufficient efforts to match children with waitlisted parents. Despite this information, CARA licensed Peace on June 19, 2003.

Mody’s report also questioned the sourcing of children to Peace. She found that the number of relinquished babies at Peace were from almost every district and region in the state of Tamil Nadu. That fact is odd given that government-run cradles where infants can be abandoned anonymously are located in every district of Tamil Nadu. Despite the wide availability of these drop off locations, Mody questioned why parents arrived from geographically distant places to relinquish their babies to Peace.

There are several branches of Peace located in Tamil Nadu. In 2004, a branch was inaugurated in Kalapatti. Raman Rao was cited in a news article as the director of Peace Home and he indicated that the branch would shelter children between one week and seven years old in addition to destitute women. At the time of the article, 70 children were at the home, most of who came to the orphanage through the cradle baby scheme. In addition, it was claimed that many mothers left the children at the doorsteps at the home and fled. According to Mary Robert at the Coimbatore based Peace society, 75% of the 140 babies they had given for adoption were from the cradle baby scheme. The Kalapatti branch of Peace is still receiving abandoned infants.

According to a fact finding report issued by the Campaign Against Child Trafficking in 2005 entitled, "Fact-finding Investigation into the Functioning of Licenced and Recognised / Registered Adoption Placement Agencies and Regulatory Bodies in Tamil Nadu" a CARA inspection report, “Report of the Joint Inspection of Peace (Poor Economy and Children’s Educational Society) Home, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu”, dated July 2, 2004, Peace had indulged in “unethical practices” and its “registration was not proper.” The report pointed out that most children from the agency were being sent to IFI in Washington DC whose executive director is Mrudula Rao, mother of the treasurer of Peace. E. Raman Rao, the treasurer’s father, donated most of the funds to the agency which is one such “unethical practice” cited in CARA’s report because most of the children were being sent to IFI. According to a Frontline investigative report of adoption agencies in Tamil Nadu, the 2004 CARA report included the following allegations against Peace:

“The agency has tampered relinquishment deeds (surrendered directly to the Home), created false siblings, followed various unethical practices, i.e., giving wrong information about [some children in the agency at the time of the inspection].”

“While siblings A[] and A[] were admitted at different times, the relinquishment deeds indicate that they were surrendered together.”

“According to the relinquishment deed, Maheshwari and her sibling were surrendered by their widowed mother. But the inspection team found that Maheshwari’s father was alive; she was left there for better education; and the sibling she was paired with was actually not her brother.”

“Several registers/records are not properly maintained.”

“The registration of the Society is not proper.”

“While more than 40 Indian parents have registered for children, the agency has not shown interest to complete home studies of the families.”

Despite CARA’s inspection report and an order to show cause issued to Peace that received no reply, CARA renewed Peace’s license in April 2005. Peace currently no longer has a license to perform inter-country adoptions.

2. Allegations about IFI

A visit to India-adoption related forums such as ichild and blogs will quickly confirm the long history of complaints about IFI similar to those raised by the Smiths. One mother writes on her blog in 2005:

Our agency isn’t at fault, really. Not directly, at least. They’re just too
passive. They’ve just accepted what the liason said and never questioned any of
it. This liason has a bad rap in the India adoption world – we knew this only
after we were knee-deep in the program and already in love with our little girl.
He is known for over-promising waiting families and not delivering – often
without refunding money invested by the waiting families. But we were assured
that he had never done anything negative in the years that he worked with our
agency and had, in fact, completed around 100 successful adoptions from India
with our agency. So we didn’t worry too much back then. Over the years, though,
our doubts grew. And now our doubts were confimed.

Despite its reputation and history of complaints, IFI received temporary Hague accreditation for a period of two years.

3. ICIA is not licensed by CARA. According to existing CARA guidelines, “a foreign social/child welfare agency desirous of sponsoring applications of foreign adoptive parents for adopting an Indian child shall make an application to CARA through the Office of Indian Diplomatic Mission in that country and only such foreign agencies enlisted for this purpose by CARA shall undertake this activity.”

Questions

1. Does CARA permit umbrella relationships such as that between ICIA and IFI?

2. Does ICIA or IFI have any accountability for charging a $20,500 “country fee” which is well above CARA’s guideline current maximum of $3,500?

3. Given the irregularities cited by CARA inspectors and reports by NGOs and investigative journalists about unethical practices at PEACE, what ethical responsibility did ICIA have to become aware of PEACE’s operations instead of relying solely on IFI’s statements along the way?

4. Did the unethical practices cited by CARA about PEACE, PEACE’s relationship with IFI, IFI’s long history of complaints from other families factor into its review for Hague accreditation?

Usha

Smith v. Island Coast International Adoption, Slip Copy, 2008 WL 839793 (N.D. Ohio March 27, 2008)

U.S. Department of States list of Accredited, Temporarily Accredited, and Approved Hague Adoption Service Providers as of April 15, 2008

CARA Guidelines, Rule 6.1 and List of Recognized Indian Placement Agencies in Tamil Nadu, as of April 20, 2008

“Baby girl abandoned in theatre,” The Hindu, November 28, 2007

"Adoption Agencies and Institutional Practices in Tamil Nadu: A Sociological Study”, Sujata Mody, Malarchi Women’s Resource Centre, Chennai, 2005

"Fact-finding Investigation into the Functioning of Licenced and Recognised / Registered Adoption Placement Agencies and Regulatory Bodies in Tamil Nadu", Campaign Against Child Trafficking, August 19, 2005

“The Adoption Market” by Asha Krishnakumar, Frontline, Vol. 22, Issue 11, May 21-June 3, 2005

“Behind the façade” by Asha Krishnakumar, Frontline, Vol. 22, Issue 11, May 21-June 3, 2005

AfrIndie Mum, blog post dated May 26, 2005

“Orphanage inaugurated,” The Hindu, April 6, 2004

US Embassy in Vietnam: Summary of Irregularities in Adoptions in Vietnam

2008-04-25T14:43:00.000-07:00

The public document which follows was posted by the United States Embassy in Hanoi, Vietnam's Adopted Children Immigrant Visa Unit on their official website on Friday, April 25, 2008:

Summary of Irregularities in Adoptions in Vietnam

On October 25, 2007 in response to “growing concerns about irregularities in the methods used to identify children for adoption in Vietnam and the resulting difficulties in classifying those children as orphans,” USCIS required that I-600 petitions be filed in Ho Chi Minh City, with the processing of these petitions to be completed before prospective adoptive parents travel to Vietnam. These procedures enable USCIS to determine whether a child qualifies as an orphan, as defined by the Immigration and Nationality Act. In the six months since this program was instituted, US officials in Vietnam have investigated over 300 I-600 petitions. This report presents a summary of our findings.

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Country Fraud Profile
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Vietnam is considered to be a high risk country for immigration fraud according to the Department of State. Fraudulent documents are routinely submitted by Vietnamese applicants in both non-immigrant and immigrant visa applications. These include both documents that have been fabricated outright and official documents issued improperly or based on incorrect information. Birth certificates, household registry documents, and marriage certificates can easily be purchased from corrupt local government officials or brokers. Marriage fraud, in order to obtain immigration benefits, is common and has resulted in multiple arrests in the United States.

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Adoption Legislation and Administrative Structure
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Intercountry adoption in Vietnam is regulated by two decrees: Decree 68/2002 and Decree 69/2006. These decrees divide responsibility for adoption between the Department of International Adoption (DIA) in the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) at the national level. Most of the actual administration of adoptions, however, is handled at the provincial or district level, with minimal oversight from DIA or MOLISA. For example, the matching of children and adoptive parents is the responsibility of the district-level Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs. In many cases this authority is delegated to the orphanage director. If DIA feels that a child is not eligible for intercountry adoption, they can request the office that made the match review the file, but they cannot block the match or prevent the completion of a full and final adoption.

The definition of an adoptable orphan is provided in Decree 68/2002 Article 44, which states that a child cannot be released for adoption without "the written voluntary agreement of the father and/or mother of that child." The decree lists only three exceptions to this rule. The first is if both parents are deceased; the second is if the child "has been abandoned or left at a medical establishment;" and the third is if "the child's parents have lost their civil act capacity" [sic]. Decree 69/2006 clarifies that the orphanage or People's Committee must prove that a child is covered by one of these exceptions. Otherwise, a child is still considered to be under his parents' custody, whose consent is required prior to any adoption being authorized. Decree 68/2002 and Decree 69/2006 also establish that in the case of a child who has been abandoned or left at a medical facility, a 30 day search must be made for the birth parents, and in all cases a separate 30 day search must be made for domestic adoptive parents. These searches are conducted by the orphanage or local People's Committee.

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Financial links between ASPs and Orphanages
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Vietnamese law requires that an Adoption Service Provider (ASP) sign a donation agreement with an orphanage before the ASP can arrange adoptions from the orphanage. These agreements are generally not released to the public. Several orphanage directors have told the Embassy that they actively bargain with multiple ASPs, and choose to work with the ASP that offers the highest donation per child referred. While these donations can be a mechanism to assist in the care of the children at the orphanage, they can also have a distorting effect on the adoption system.

Orphanage directors in four provinces have reported to the Embassy that there is a strong financial incentive to maximize the number of children available for foreign adoption in their centers. The donation provided per child (available for intercountry adoption) can be up to 10 times the standard government funding. Hospital and social workers have reported that orphanage directors offer them financial incentives for each child sent to their orphanage.

As a result of the autonomy given to orphanage directors by MOLISA, individual orphanage directors, in conjunction with representatives of their sponsoring ASP, have broad latitude in determining how donations will be made, what the amount will be, and whether applications from prospective domestic adoptive parents will be processed. For example, one orphanage, which is entirely funded by an American ASP, submits expense reports and receipts to the ASP on a monthly basis. The ASP then transfers funds to reimburse the orphanage for its expenses. The number of infants in this orphanage has remained steady for the past three years. The orphanage is clean, well stocked with medicine and has an RN on duty. This orphanage prioritizes reuniting children with their biological parents, and processes equal numbers of domestic and intercountry adoptions. By contrast, another orphanage receives a fixed monthly donation for each child in the orphanage who is available for international adoption and the payment is made in cash directly to the orphanage director. This orphanage has seen the number of infants in its care increase by over 2000% in the past year, but it has not made significant increases in staff and does not have an RN.

According to DIA, orphanages are required to refer one child for foreign adoption for every x dollars donated by the ASP. Thus, if the ASP funds a $10,000 project and the per-child donation is set at $1000 per child, then the orphanage would be required to refer 10 children for intercountry adoption to the ASP. Should the orphanage not have 10 children who are qualified for intercountry adoption, then, according to DIA, the orphanage director is required to find the additional children to complete his side of the agreement. Two orphanage directors have confirmed to consular officers that they are feeling pressure to find more children for their orphanage to "compensate" ASPs for their donations.

Another effect of the donation system is that it can reduce the protections that Vietnamese law grants to birth parents, such as the required 30 day search for birth parents and/or domestic adoptive parents as described above. Since, in most cases, the ASP has a close relationship with the orphanage, the ASP representative may be informed as soon as a potentially adoptable child enters the orphanage. This can result in the issuance of a "soft referral," where adopting parents are notified that they have been matched with a child before the completion of the two consecutive 30 day search periods. The DIA has stated that such pre-referrals are illegal. Nonetheless, in over 40 documented cases, DIA has taken no action to punish or prevent the issuance of soft referrals, noting that all they can do is to inform provincial or district officials of the law and request their compliance.

Local officials throughout Vietnam have reported that they have never received any calls in response to ads run seeking the birth parents of a deserted child. In fact, officials at the Ministry of Justice acknowledge that such advertisements are ineffective as many families in these provinces have no access to TV or radio and are often illiterate. Vietnamese social workers also note that if a child is abandoned, the birth family is most likely to reclaim the child 3-6 months after the abandonment. However, the ads are run only one week after the abandonment, further decreasing their effectiveness. Further, provincial officials have stated that the advertisements are made in a manner that significantly decreases the likelihood that they will be heard or seen by the birth families. Investigations by the Embassy have also confirmed that the ads are not effective. In 6 cases where investigations by the Embassy have located the birth family of allegedly deserted children, the birth families said that they never heard or saw any ads seeking the parents of the child.

Orphanage directors in two provinces have confirmed to the Embassy that while they receive applications from families interested in domestic adoption, they do not process these applications. They have said that the reason these applications are not processed is that their orphanage will receive a donation from an ASP if the baby is adopted internationally, but not if the child is adopted domestically. One orphanage director stated that he would need "permission" from the ASP funding his orphanage in order to release a child for domestic adoption, noting that the monthly support payments the ASP made for the children gave the ASP the "authority" to decide the child's future.

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Types of Adoption Cases
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Under US Immigration law, children can be adopted if they are orphans due to the whereabouts of their birth parents being unknown (desertion) or if one or both birth parents have permanently relinquished custody of their child to the orphanage, (termed "abandonment" by US Immigration law, but commonly referred to as relinquishment). Prior to the suspension of adoption in 2002, 80% of cases were relinquishments, and 20% were abandonments. Since the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) went into effect in 2005, those figures have flipped with over 85% of the cases involving desertions. Orphanages not involved in intercountry adoption, however, have reported to the Embassy that they have not seen any increase in the number of deserted children, and the vast majority of children in these facilities are children in care . Post has received multiple, credible reports from orphanage officials that facilitators are deliberately staging fraudulent desertions to conceal the identity of the birth parents.

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Relinquishments
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Cases where one or both birth parents have permanently relinquished their child to an orphanage account for 15% of cases filed under the Orphan First program. 75% of birth parents who were interviewed by a consular officer stated that in addition to payments for food, medical care and administrative expenses, they received payment from the orphanage in exchange for placing their child in the orphanage. On average this payment was six million Vietnamese Dong, which is the equivalent of 11 months salary at minimum wage in Vietnam. Many of these families cited these payments as the primary reason for placing their child in an orphanage. The majority of these parents also state that they had not considered placing their child in an orphanage until a health care worker or orphanage official suggested to them that they should do so and informed them that they would receive a payment for doing so. Many of these parents also report that orphanage officials told them that the child will visit home frequently, will return home after they reach a certain age (often 11 or 12), or will send remittance payments from the United States. In these cases, the majority of birth parents have said they do not consent to the adoption if any of these conditions are not kept.

The Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) has stated that the payments to birth parents described above are unauthorized and not funded by government sources. The Ministry of Justice has likewise confirmed that such payments are illegal under Vietnamese law. MOLISA has stated, however, that there are absolutely no regulations on how orphanage directors can spend the money given to them by ASPs and that orphanage directors can give this money to anyone they wish, as long as the recipient did not have to take any action, such as relinquishing a child, in order to receive the donation. Accordingly, while MOLISA can confirm that the reported payments from orphanage officials to biological parents must have come from ASP funds, they do not have the ability to take action or to investigate reports of child buying.

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Desertions
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Throughout Vietnam, officials at orphanages connected with intercountry adoptions report a sharp increase in the number of deserted children has since 2005, the year that the adoption agreement with the United States was signed. Orphanages in 7 provinces report a 17 fold or greater increase in desertions. Officials at orphanages not connected with intercountry adoption, however, have not seen an increase in desertions. A statistical review of child desertions reveals a series of facilities that have an unexplained high rate of child desertions.

Provincial records also document an unusual pattern of "desertion pockets." For example, in one province in 2007 there were 77 cases of child desertion. Of these, 76 occurred at one particular orphanage. The director of this orphanage told the Embassy that before he signed an agreement with an ASP, the orphanage was home to 10 children, most of whom had been relinquished. By January 2007, the orphanage was home to 23 children, of whom fifty percent had been deserted. By January 2008, the orphanage was home to 70 infants, with over 90% of them having been deserted. The orphanage director attributed the growth in the number of children and the number of desertions to the fact that the orphanage was receiving funds from the American ASP. He also stated that the orphanage had hired contract employees to find children between zero and six years of age whose families were in a particularly difficult situation and encourage the families to put their children in the orphanage. The orphanage guards also confirmed that desertions were extremely rare before 2006, but now they “find” five infants per month on average.

In other cases, individuals report finding children in a field or by the side of the road. Often the individual who purportedly found the child (child finder) is a police officer, a village official or a member of their immediate family. These individuals are often related to the orphanage director or the local official who approves adoptions. Embassy investigations have shown that many of these reports are fraudulent. These include cases in which those individuals, who only months or weeks before had signed statements claiming to have found a deserted child, told consular officers that they had never in their lives found a deserted child. In one case, the child finder could not remember finding a child, even though the purported event had happened the day before. In another case, the child finder stated that the police told her if she did not sign a fraudulent statement claiming that she had found a child in 2007, they would arrest her for kidnapping in connection with a child finder statement that she signed in 2006.

In over 10 cases, Embassy investigations have discovered the identity of the birth mother in cases where a child was purportedly deserted. In all of these cases, the birth mother was known to orphanage or hospital officials, but these institutions fraudulently document the case as a desertion. In some cases, this was to conceal payments to the birth family. In others, children were declared to be deserted with unknown parents after the birth parents failed to pay outstanding hospital bills.

In one of these cases, the official Vietnamese documentation the child was born at Hospital X and then the birth mother left the hospital and was untraceable. An Embassy investigation showed that the child was born by C-section at a different hospital. The child was pre-mature and had significant respiratory problems and thus was transferred to Hospital X. Based on information from the hospital director, the Embassy located and interviewed the birth mother, who stated that she had visited her son at the hospital several times, but that the hospital director would not let her hold the child until she paid a 12 million Vietnam Dong hospital bill. She stated that she applied to have the bill reduced due to her low income, but the director refused to consider the application. Additionally, she stated that she had been told that her child would require lifelong treatment for water on the brain and that, as a result, her son had been transferred to Orphanage Y for care. She was shocked to hear that the medical report from the U.S. panel physician stated that the child was healthy. After considerable pressure from the U.S. Mission, this adoption was canceled and the child is now back with his birth parents.

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Unlicensed Facilities
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In five provinces, the Embassy has discovered unlicensed, unregulated facilities that provide free room and board to pregnant women in return for their commitment to relinquish their children upon birth. None of these facilities openly advertises its services. Women learn of the facilities existence solely by word of mouth. While the facilities are open and the women are free to come and go as they please, they incur a debt for each night that they stay that they have to pay if they do not relinquish their child. Recent Vietnamese media reports of such facilities have revealed that women often live in squalor and in many cases are forced to labor during their stay. In several of these facilities, there is a policy that the birth mother cannot see her child after delivery, in order to prevent bonding. Women in these facilities report receiving up to 6 million Vietnam Dong as payment for their children. While the source of funding for these facilities is unclear, they appear to have close connections with nearby orphanages.

When the Embassy visited these facilities, we saw up to 20 women living in a single home. These women reported that orphanage officials came to the house in order to have them sign paperwork relinquishing their children. The women would then receive the promised payments. Often, the child is then taken to a nearby hospital or orphanage where a second set of paperwork is produced stating that the child was deserted. This is the paperwork that is submitted to the DIA and to the Embassy to support the claim that the child is an orphan.

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Vietnamese Documents - Issuance Procedures
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Documents relating to adoptions in Vietnam, such as birth certificates, abandonment reports, relinquishment agreements, and investigative reports are generally issued by orphanage directors, local People’s Committees, Provincial Departments and the Department for International Adoptions (DIA). The facts asserted in these documents are not verified by the issuing officials. Attempts by U.S. officials to verify the accuracy of these documents have routinely uncovered evidence of fraudulent or inaccurate information. Therefore, all documents issued by the authorities listed above and any other documents containing information not verified by the issuing authority cannot be considered adequate evidence of the facts claimed and, at best, may be used in conjunction with primary and contemporaneous secondary evidence or must be must be independently verified by U.S. officials in Vietnam before they can be considered valid for immigration purposes.

In cases involving the desertion of a child, local officials usually issue birth certificates and reports of abandonment at the request of orphanage or hospital officials without speaking to the individuals involved. For example, the People's Committee in one southern province told the Embassy that they issue whatever documents a local midwife requests without verifying the accuracy of the statements. This is done to "help her with her business with the orphanage." In a different province, village officials issued an official statement that a birth mother was single, even though their own registry book showed she was married and had four children. Further, MOLISA has confirmed that for deserted children a birth certificate can be issued showing the date and time of desertion as the date and time of birth and listing the birth parents as unknown, even if the true facts have been previously recorded in official documents.

The Embassy has received credible reports that some ASPs pay $10,000 per referred child to local facilitators. According to one of these facilitators, a significant portion of this money goes to the orphanage director, who is responsible for finding children. The facilitator and orphanage director then work together to create a false advertisement claiming that the child was abandoned, regardless of the child's true origins. This ad is then used to obtain the necessary paperwork from local officials and DIA. The facilitator noted that as long as the right fee is paid, no one tries to verify the facts of the case, and the documents are issued with no questions asked.

Fraudulent police reports have also been submitted to the Embassy in connection with adoption cases. For example, in one adoption case the original file stated that the birth mother was unknown. However, hospital records revealed the mother's name and address. When the Embassy requested an explanation as to why DIA approved the adoption case without a police search for the biological mother as required by Vietnamese law, DIA blamed the omission of the birthmother search report on the village police and provided a document dated March 21, 2007, stating that a police check had been done and they could not find the birth mother. However, the police officer who purportedly did the check stated he had not actually done a physical search, and that the date on the document was inaccurate. He stated that "about 20 days ago" the police chief in another village visited his office with a prepared backdated report about the search and asked him to sign, which he did.

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Vietnamese Documents - Verification Procedures
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Once a child has been matched with a prospective adoptive parent, the provincial level Department of Justice conducts a review of the file to ensure that it contains the proper documents required by Vietnamese law. According to provincial Department of Justice officials, the review consists of physically verifying that the child is in the orphanage and verifying that each required document is signed, sealed and in the file. There is no requirement to verify the accuracy of the information contained in the file. Further, there is no requirement to verify that a birth parent intended to relinquish their child or to verify the circumstances of a child's desertion. According to DIA, even if this review were to uncover any discrepancies, DIA and provincial Department of Justice officials are prohibited from conducting an independent review of the facts or speaking directly with the witnesses in the case. Instead, they are required by Article 45 of Decree 68/2002 to return the case to the official who prepared the original report. If this individual recertifies that his original report is correct, then the case is allowed to proceed.

DIA's explicit position is that, as long as the appropriate papers have been signed by the correct officials, DIA will certify that the adoption complies with Vietnamese law. DIA has stated that it does not actually have the authority to declare an adoption illegal, revoke a Giving and Receiving Ceremony, or cancel a referral. The lack of verification and accountability regulations in Vietnamese adoption law creates a situation where an unscrupulous orphanage director or local official who fabricates a "desertion" or "relinquishment” is also only that official who can investigate the alleged fraud in the case.

A provincial Department of Justice official told the Embassy of cases where under Vietnamese law children had been matched with adopting families and the cases were referred to her office for verification. In one case, hospital records stated that the birth mother had registered at the hospital under an assumed name and then died shortly after the birth. The child was listed as deserted. However, the DOJ official found a reference in the hospital file that the woman's family had come to the hospital to claim her body. As a result the official contacted the family, who stated that the hospital had transferred the child to the orphanage without their consent and that the orphanage had denied them visitation rights. The family has now been reunited with the child, who is being raised by his maternal grandparents. However, the official noted that under Vietnamese law no one had technically done anything wrong in separating this child from his family. Only her personal interest in the case and her ability to persuade other local officials to do the right thing prevented this child from being permanently separated from his family.

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Reports of Corruption in Adoption System
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The Embassy has received credible reports from current and former employees of ASPs working in Vietnam regarding corruption in the adoption system, beginning with the licensing procedures. Several ASPs have reported that they were told they had to fund tours to the United States for DIA and other government officials in order to receive their licenses. According to ASP employees, these tours included shopping sprees, where ASP employees were expected to pay for all of the purchases of the Vietnamese delegation. Others have reported being asked to pay bribes in order to obtain provincial licenses.

In addition, statements from adopting parents and ASP employees show that many ASPs ask adopting parents to pay cash donations to orphanage directors and staff. These payments are illegal according to the Vietnamese Ministry of Justice, but the Ministry acknowledges that they are widespread and that they are a key factor in the irregularities seen in the adoption system in Vietnam. Further, ASPs have reported that cash and in-kind donations have been diverted by orphanage officials and used to finance personal property, private cars, jewelry and, in one case, a commercial real estate development.

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Official Response to Reports of Irregularities
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DIA has acknowledged that when it receives reports from the Embassy regarding fraud in adoption cases, they meet with the ASP or local facilitators to develop a strategy to refute the Embassy's evidence. Frequently this consists of a second investigation where child-finders are notified in advance that they will be re-interviewed in front of the People's Committee. When they arrive they are reminded that they can be punished for having previously made false statements to the People’ Committee. In other cases, birth mothers from rural provinces who had told the Embassy they did not agree to relinquish their children were summoned to Hanoi at their own expense and ordered to appear before DIA to sign new relinquishment papers. Under this pressure, child-finders and birth mothers have recanted the statements they had made to consular officials.

The Embassy has informed the DIA of cases of potential fraud and illegal activity. However, the DIA has acknowledged that it has not taken any action, criminal or administrative, against any individual or organization for any violation of Vietnamese law or regulation concerning adoption. They have also stated that they have taken no action to address concerns or allegations of wrongdoing submitted to them by individuals, ASPs or the U.S. Embassy. Instead, DIA has stated that it is in the "humanitarian" interest of the Government of Vietnam to ensure that every proposed adoption is completed as quickly as possible. They note that the ASPs have made a donation for the child, and thus, even if they had the authority to revoke a referral or an adoption, they would not do so because they could not break their contract with the ASP.

Summary of Irregularities in Adoptions in Vietnam, Adopted Children Immigrant Visa Unit, Embassy of the United States in Hanoi, Vietnam, 25 April, 2008

When the Bough Breaks -- Criticisms of Tamil Nadu's Baby Cradle Scheme

2008-04-21T22:15:00.000-07:00

A Cradle Baby Scheme was established by the Tamil Nadu, India state government in 1992 as a means to combat the problem of female infanticide in certain areas of the state. At the time, studies reported that there were about 3,000 cases of femal infanticide yearly in Tamil Nadu which approached 20% of all female infant deaths in the State.

Tamil Nadu launched the Cradle Baby Scheme under which parents could leave babies in cradles at government-designated reception centers. The Scheme started in centers in Salem, Madurai, Theni and Dindigul, the areas most notorious in Tamil Nadu for female infanticide. The scheme extended throughout the state and reception centers were set up in every district at major government hospitals and other sites.

In 1994 the State began arresting parents charged with female infanticide under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (murder). That year, an estimated 100 such cases were registered, resulting in a few life sentences.

As of June 1, 2007, the government had received 2,589 children through the Baby Cradle Scheme. Though the Scheme was established in 1992, most of the children, 2,495, were surrendered/abandoned through the Scheme after the year 2000.

On March 29, 2008, Renuka Chowdhury, the Union Ministry for Women and Child Development, issued a press release stating that baby reception centers would be set up in every district in the country of India. A country-wide Cradle Baby Scheme was to have been inaugurated in December 2007 but has been postponed purportedly due to a lack of funds. R. Smitha, managing director of the Puducherry Corporation for Development of Women, indicates that the nationwide program now will be launched during 2009-2010.

A special report in March 2008 by Tehelka Magazine outlines major criticisms of the Baby Cradle Scheme:

Lack of Records for Cradle Babies. The first children adopted out of the Cradle Baby Scheme would now be about 15-16 years old. But there is no information available about these children and whether the Scheme has benefited them. No records have been kept for these children and no one in the government knows what happened to these children after they were handed over to adoption agencies. In addition, although in many cases the identity of the surrendering parents are known, this information is not available for the babies who are abandoned through the Cradle Baby Scheme.

Mortality Rate of Cradle Babies. As of June 1, 2007, 404 of the 2,589 babies received under the scheme died. According to P Phavalam, project officer at the Society for Integrated Rural Development in Madurai, the infant mortality rate in Tamil Nadu is 31, but it is 162 for the cradle babies.

Relationship between Cradle Baby Scheme and the Proliferation of Unmonitored Adoption Agencies. Organizations such as the Integrated Rural Development are opposed to the Cradle Baby Scheme. They assert that the cradle babies have turned out to be an unending source of supply for adoption agencies in the State. A social worker at Peace Society in Coimbature estimates that 75% of the nearly 140 babies they had given for adoption were cradle babies. As of November 2003, 27 of the 45 babies housed at Concorde House of Jesus and 19 of the 46 children at Guild of Service were cradle babies. Critics say that the cradle babies give the adoption agencies recognition and acceptance for their activities “without excessive monitoring and interference.” It is felt that the pressure on the Department of Social Welfare to rehabilitate the babies under the Cradle Baby Scheme has made them more flexible towards the agencies and their practices.

It appears that the proliferation of adoption agencies in Tamil Nadu is intricately linked to the Cradle Baby Scheme. Between 2002 and 2006, the time frame when the government revived the Cradle Baby Scheme and extended it to all districts, the number of adoption agencies doubled from 11 to 23. In 2005, a four-month study on the functioning of adoption agencies in the State prompted by the exposure of a kidnapping and sale racket of approximately 350 children, found that there was “big competition” among adoption agencies to get babies from the Cradle Baby Scheme. It also found that these agencies received large donations from prospective adoptive parents. According to the report, “We were told these donations are not accounted for and could range from Rs. 50,000 (approximately USD $1,254) to Rs. 2 lakh (approximately USD $5,015).

Questions about Welfare of Cradle Babies. With the lack of oversight over cradle babies who have been transferred to adoption agencies comes concern over their welfare. In November 2006, a five year old cradle baby in Attur had been found to have been tortured by her adoptive parents with around 300 burns and injuries on her body. As a result, the Tamil Nadu government ordered a study on the status of children put for adoption, but its findings have not been made public. Some call on the government to require annual agency reports of the child’s welfare until the child turns 18.

Questions about Cradle Babies Placed in Inter-Country Adoption. As of January 1, 2007, 1,472 cradle babies were adopted within India and 115 were adopted outside the country. Some opposed to the Cradle Baby Scheme are concerned that the cradle babies internationally adopted are growing up in an alien culture contrary to the subsidiarity principles set forth by the 1989 United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child and the 1993 Hague Convention on Inter-Country Adoption. A. Renganathan, director of the Salem-based NGO Village Reconstruction and Development Project asks, “Can the government establish that no Indian parent was willing to adopt any of those 115 children?”

Questionable Impact of the Cradle Baby Scheme on Female Infanticide Rates. Female infanticide rates have not decreased. According to M. Shankar, convenor of the Tamil Nadu chapter of the Campaign Against Negligence of Girl-Child, “Dharmapuri’s sex ratio in the 0-6 age-group is 877 compared to the state’s ratio of 939. Similarly, the female infanticide rate is 73 against the state’s rate of 55.” A. Renganathan says that some parents prefer to kill unwanted girl children rather than handing the children over to the government saying, “It causes grief for a few days, then it’s over. To hand over the child for adoption would give them life-long worry.”

The Cradle Baby Scheme Legitimizes Traditional Discrimination Against Female Children.
Instead of alleviating discrimination against females, critics charge that the Cradle Baby Scheme actually reinforces it. For example, the highest number of babies received under the Scheme were in Dharmapuri. The Scheme was launched in Dharmapuri in 2002. By February 27, 2008, the reception center at the Dharmapuri government hospital received 1,044 babies. According to the director of the center, only 41 of the 1,044 babies were male and most of these males had some disability. Thus, critics say, the message is clear that male babies are abandoned only if they have a disability, whereas a girl is dumped because of her gender.

Lack of Adequate Funding for the Cradle Baby Scheme. The Tamil Nadu government has not allocated sufficient funding to the Cradle Baby Scheme. According to the Social Welfare Department, funding has ranged between Rs. 6 lakh (approximately USD $15,045) and Rs. 12 lakh (approximately USD $30,090). Activists allege that the Scheme is poorly funded and there is no exclusive staff devoted to operating it. As a result, there are no people on hand at the various reception centers to counsel parents who come to surrender their children.

The Cradle Baby Scheme Leaves Other Alternatives Unexplored. The group Social Movement Against Female Infant Mortality recently urged the government to suggest alternative schemes to save female babies. The group suggested that it provide more financial assistance to girls in the family. For example, a marriage assistance scheme provides Rs. 15,000 (approximately USD $376) to one girl in a family. If this assistance could be extended to other girls in the family, it could bring about a change in attitude it says. In Mettur, Salem district, the Welfare Centre for Women and Children, has come up with a new program that identifies pregnant women and places those who have two or more girl children in a high risk category who are then closely monitored. The director, R. Sampath, says this close watch has had an effect on reducing female infanticide.

Usha

“The Cradle Babies,” by Asha Krishnakumar, Frontline, Vol 22, Issue 11, June 3, 2005.

“Where Do Rejected Little Girls Go…”, by PC Vinoj Kumar, Tehelka, Vol. 5, Issue 12, March 29, 2008.

“In the Interest of the Mother and the Child,” by Khushboo, Tehelka, Vol. 5, Issue 12, March 29, 2008.

“Killer Districts” by PC Vinoj Kumar, Tehelka, Vol. 5, Issue 12, March 29, 2008.

Investigation of baby trafficking scheme in Costa Rica

2008-04-21T21:34:00.000-07:00

14 individuals were detained by police on March 4, then later released in Costa Rica on suspicions of participating in an illegal adoption scheme. The 14 individuals include a family court judge, a lawyer and two social workers employed at a clinic in San Jose. Also believed to have been detained are some of the would-be parents.

Police believe that the scheme targeted mothers who were in financial need. Costa Rican adoptive parents may have paid about $10,000 per baby. It is believed the scheme involves at least three babies who were purchased since June 2006, but police suspect there are more infants involved. Chief Prosecutor Francisco Dall'Anese indicated that some of the mothers suffered from drug addiction.

According to Jorge Rojas, chief of Judicial Investigation Police, “We have evidence of the sale of a child, who perhaps went to a family enthused to have a baby. But this trafficking is prohibited by law. Even thought it was a direct deal, in which the mother handed over the child, it was in exchange for money.”

Allegedly, the lawyer who was detained was the mastermind behind the scheme. The social workers may have referred the targeted mothers and the judge allegedly signed off on the adoption paperwork in exchange for a portion of the fee paid by the adopting parents.

Formal charges have not yet been filed. The judge and social workers have been suspended for six months pending the results of the prosecutor’s investigation. There is no evidence currently that any of the infants were adopted outside of Costa Rica but police are continuing to investigate.

Usha

Costa Rica Nabs 14 for ‘Selling Babies’, Associated Press, March 4, 2008

Costa Rican Police Arrest 14 in Baby Trafficking, Tico Times, March 5, 2008

Alleged Costa Rican Baby Traffickers Released, Tico Times, March 7, 2008

Workshop 3.1: Information Sharing Prior to Adoptive Placement: What is Required and What is Ethical?

2008-04-21T19:37:00.000-07:00

Ethics and Accountability Conference
Sponsored by Ethica and Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute
October 15-16, 2007

Bullet points for discussion during Workshop 3.1:

What do prospective adoptive parents have a right to know?

What medical, social and background information should professionals be required to find, share with, and interpret for prospective adoptive parents?

How can ethical practice in sharing information with prospective parents best be promoted?

Panelists:

Bruce Boyer is a Clinical Professor and Director of the Civitas ChildLaw Clinic of the Loyola University Chicago School of Law. He has taught and practiced in the area of children’s law for almost twenty years, specializing on issues in the areas of child welfare, child custody, and adoption. He also has taught courses in juvenile law, trial advocacy, ethics, and administrative law. Professor Boyer is the author of numerous articles on issues relating to children and the law, includingethical issues in representing parents in child protection hearings and the right to counsel in termination of parental rights cases. He is currently a member of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute’s Board of Directors and a member of the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism. He has served as Chair of the American Bar Association’s Steering Committee on the Unmet Legal Needs of Children. Prior to his position at Loyola, Professor Boyer taught for 12 years at the Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago, where he served as Supervising Attorney of Northwestern’s Children and Family Justice Center.

Dr. Dana Johnson is Professor of Pediatrics, member of Division of Neonatology and Director of Research and Education for the International Adoption Clinic at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Johnson’s research focuses on the short- and long-term effects of early childhood institutionalization on child health and development. Dr. Johnson serves on the Editorial Boards of Adoption Quarterly and Adoptive Families Magazine and is a Senior Research Fellow in the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. He has authored over 200 journal articles, book chapters and abstracts.

Nora O’Farrell is the Director of Adoptive Families Together (AFT), a parent-run program of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (MSPCC). As director of AFT, Ms. O’Farrell oversees the provision of education, advocacy, training, and support to families, professionals and communities about the unique circumstances inherent in the adoption experience. Her experience includes collaboration with child welfare agencies, working with children and youth with behavioral health issues, and providing post adoption support for families.

Johana Oreskovic is the Director of Post-Professional Educational Programs and International Students Services at the University at Buffalo Law School where she also teaches courses in adoption law. Her primary interest is the regulatory framework within which international adoptions are conducted. Professor Oreskovic has widely lectured on the use of the Immigration and Nationality Act’s visa fraud prosecutions and child trafficking for purposes of international adoption. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Ethica.

Dana Johnson
Dr. Johnson was trained as a neonatologist. A little over 25 years ago occurred Indiana’s Baby Doe case involving a baby born with Down’s Syndrome. The parents were counseled by two physicians. Their obstetrician had experience with raising a handicapped child in his own life. This doctor said the child would lead a painful and miserable life. Their pediatrician said the opposite, that the child could live a happy life. The baby could not eat, so by not treating the child, the child would starve. The Indiana court system said the family made a choice between two competing opinions and the parents could choose. The baby died while the case went to the Supreme Court. In response, the Reagan Administration enacted Baby Doe Regulations which said food could not be withheld from children because they were handicapped. This infuriated the physician community for intruding into the decision-making process. In the Baby Doe case, there was not a well-reasoned process in decision making because bad info was provided to the parents.

Our response at that time was to suggest that we have ethical propositions on which to base decision making. That might be something to apply to ethical decision making in the adoption context:

What do we believe about the children, the obligations of prospective adoptive parents and obligations of the agency? Starting with the preamble of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, a child has the right to grow up in permanent family and add to that: “where their needs are met.”

Primary obligation of parents: to be involved and make a decision

Primary obligation of the agency -- advocate for the child. The decision should be child centered.

A decision to adopt requires sufficient assessment and parental involvement in the decision-making process. There needs to be a conscious decision-making process and not be treated like a matter of fate. Parents need access to those who can help them make a decision. The agency should be an advocate for the child by obtaining the necessary information for the child and giving it to the prospective adoptive parents in an understandable form. They need to facilitate the family’s decision as to whether they can parent that child. And they need to provide sufficient time to make that decision. It is unethical to provide 24 hours and say another family is waiting. Agencies can’t abandon children who they find difficult to place.

What information is really helpful? What families are concerned about at the time of adoption is not the information they are concerned about 5 years later. Parents become interested in behavioral issues 5-10 years after adoption. Some information is more helpful than others. For example, apgar scores are useless. However, nice pictures are very helpful. For example, with photos, can predict fetal alcohol syndrome much better. With respect to preadoption evaluations, we need to develop evidence-based information that will help us predict and help families make a decision. Head circumference at the time of arrival, length of institutionalization and growth after arrival all help predict IQ, but when all those factors are put in a regression equation, only 17% of information available before adoption predicts variance in IQ, and information available after adoption only gets up to 25%. We will inevitably never be able to predict what will happen in the future. So do medical evaluations help at all? Yes. He has looked at over 2300 kids adopted in Minnesota by 1600 families who had medical evaluations before adoption: found much higher rating of viewing international adoption as a way to build a family, much more appropriate expectations of what was going to be coming ahead and fewer behavioral problems in the kids.

O’Farrell

Adoptive Families Together is a program from a parent’s perspective but is child centered. It consists of a mix of people who have adopted through the Department of Social Services (mostly older children and mostly identified as special needs), domestic infant children and internationally adopted children. There are a lot of prospective, foster and guardian families.

The process should start with expectant parents. Parents must think about the child and family long before the child arrives. A child’s original family and the people who cared for them before us should be honored. As adoptive parents, it’s our duty and responsibility from the beginning to start thinking about not just about our needs.

Adoptive parents have a right to know everything. Ethically, prospective adoptive parents should talk to a counselor type person who can help them figure out what kind of children they can parent. Professionals in the field can then use that information to do the match. It gives expectant parents a false sense of control to base their placement decision on letters from prospective adoptive parents.

She advises prospective adoptive parents not to look at pictures because they will have an immediate reaction either positive or negative. Oftentimes the pictures are old. That said, prospective adoptive parents need to know the complete story on a non-identifying basis. It’s up to the agencies and attorneys to get the full story. Agencies need to take the time to really get to know the kids.

We are the custodians for the adopted persons, but as they get older, it is they who will determine where they want to go in terms of connecting with their wholeness. It’s not our decision to close contact, it’s up to our children. We don’t need to be threatened by families of origin.

Regarding post-placement services, adoption is a lifelong process for all of us. It’s a responsibility of society to do a better job of supporting all types of families. How can adoption be supported so that it doesn’t get pathologized?

Oreskovic
Discussed information sharing within the context of international adoptions. All her comments deal with the current legal framework. The situation may change following adoption of the Hague. The rules she is discussing will continue to apply to non-Hague countries.

1. What do prospective adoptive parents have a right to know in the context of international adoption?

They have the right to make an informed decision about whether they can parent a child based on available, medical, social and developmental info. What do we mean by a right and how can a rights-based analysis be framed in a way that takes into account the diversity of experiences and cultural norms reflected in international adoption? Her definition begins with the premise that in the Western legal system, the contours of a right are often determined by balancing the interests of all concerned in a transaction. In international adoption, this would be the adoptive parents, the child, the birth parents and possibly, the placement agency. Other things that need to be balanced are things like (1) the ability of orphanages, especially in impoverished countries to create and maintain records, (2) the ability of the sending country and its social welfare structure to the extent one exists, to gather maintain and provide information, taking into account different norms surrounding relinquishment and illegitimacy. The contours and scope of the right will vary widely among countries. Therefore, prospective adoptive parents deserve as much information as is available, but they also deserve from the agency truthful disclosure prior to selection of the country or disclosure from the agency to the extent there is limited availability of information and the consequences to parenting that child flowing from that lack of information. Adoptive parents, before they enter the process, have a right to know what they can know before they select a country and agencies have a responsibility to disclose truthfully the information they have at their disposal.

2. What medical and social background information should agencies be required to gather and disclose?

There are sometimes impenetrable barriers at sending countries to information. The orphan definition in the Immigration and Nationality Act for purposes of issuing visas really incentivizes the anonymous abandonment of children. For example, it is very difficult for a single parent to relinquish a child in many countries and if we want to facilitate the process, it is best to not have any information at all. All kinds of ethical problems flow from this. Who or which entity is in the best position in the process to obtain, share and interpret information? This implicates question 3.

3. How can ethical practice best be promoted?

In the context of an international adoption, it is the adoption agency that is in the best position to obtain the information required to allow for informed consent. Because of its role in the process, the agency has an affirmative duty to all triad members to ensure that it works continually in the context of the sending country to expand the realm of knowable information, provided that it doesn’t put vulnerable parties at risk in their own countries (for example, single parents) because: (1) the agency is likely to have the best contacts within the sending country, and (2) agencies are organized in lobbies so they are in the best position to leverage the U.S. government which can in turn leverage sending countries to provide more information.

Too often in the international adoption context, agencies fail to satisfy the ethical duty to obtain and expand the amount of knowable information because the relationship between agencies and adoptive parents is by and large controlled by contract, not statute.

It has become the norm for contracts in international adoption to include extremely broad exculpatory clauses which in effect absolve the agency of any duty whatsoever to obtain accurate medical, developmental and social information on the children offered for placement. When challenged, courts have routinely upheld the validity of exculpatory clauses.

A typical international adoption contract she found provides: “I release and discharge x agency from any and all causes of actions, claims, demands, damages, costs, loss of services and expenses which may arise now or in the future as a result of my attempt to adopt a child. My release includes but is not limited to the potential claims as set forth below: We will not be held responsible for physical or mental problems to which the child may be predisposed or may develop in the future. I release the agency from any actions or charges implemented by the U.S. or foreign country which may result in additional cost, procedures, delays or timeframes. We hold harmless the agency, its employees, agents and board of directors from any situation which may occur in regard to our personal safety within the sending country and from claims which we may have for emotional injury suffered from the adoption process.” The contract lists a number of diseases. “We have acknowledged that we have received all information available to the agency.

In a contract based system, rights and responsibilities are determined through negotiation. Prospective adoptive parents have no power whatsoever. What can be done to facilitate access to and sharing more knowable information? Agencies should be required through the contractual and negotiation process to meet certain baselines. Adoptive parents, with some assistance, could negotiate clauses holding agencies responsible for a bare minimum, for example, undertaking due diligence to determine whether a child does in fact satisfy the U.S. orphan definition, vet in country personnel to ensure the child was not procured by improper payments, in countries that permit video and testing, that the agency took all available steps to obtain accurate info and provide prospective adoptive parents with avenues of legal redress instead of signing contracts of adhesion. This is unlikely to happen in the future but it is necessary to allow informed consent.

Questions:

1. Is there anything that can be done to guard against the falsification of information?

Oreskovic: In the international adoption context, there are many children who are legitimate orphans under the U.S. definition. It requires more effort and time and it is more of a concern not to make the process quick and easy but to make it legal. For example, in Cambodia it was easier to cook up birth certificates because agents were too lazy to obtain the information.
O’Farrell: On the domestic side, this involves the field of social work and accepted practice in how we’ve evolved into the adoption business. For infant adoptions, what information do we need to know and how do we develop a trusting relationship with the expectant parent? If they tell the truth, will the child not be placed with the best prospective adoptive parent they found for that child? Is there a safe environment to talk with the agency or attorney? For older child adoptions, it is negligence on the part of social welfare system that they are not getting more assessments and evaluations for the children. They are not putting together the full story for the children. Ethically, they need to do a better job of getting the real truth and real information so it can be passed on to the adoptive parents.

2. The founder for Friends in Adoption, a domestic placement agency commented that she works on the premise that people coming for services want a healthy baby and healthy family. They are not adversarial, but should work together. She has found that presented that way, people are forthcoming and the integrity of adoptive couple and the pregnant mother is there. If they cannot get information, typically from the biological father, the grandparents can be a wealth of information. So they will go to the extended family to try to get accurate information.

She also feels strongly there is a responsibility that adoptive parents care take the adoption until the child can care take the adoption for himself. Not to have available information around issues of addiction and mental illness is a disservice to the child. So they explain that to the biological family, not to be judgmental, but better prepared for the child to grow up healthy.

As an agency director, she doesn’t have a legal right to determine who can and cannot adopt beyond the criteria set forth in the home study process and procedure. Many times she has felt a family is not the right family to qualify for adoption, but she has been told she cannot disallow an adoption by the family.

Her agency began with a handshake but because society is so eager to sue, she now has a service agreement which requires sign off on every line of expectations.

3. Any advice for how to help state agencies understand the importance of knowing the child’s full history prior to matching?

O’Fallon: Training and supervision for agencies which means resources, schools of social work, and expectations of standards of care. Trauma evaluations are useful. Time of placement is critical for prospective families because once the adoption is finalized, records are closed. Prospective families are perceived as demanding if they ask for information which can jeopardize the placement.

4. David Brodzinsky commented that it’s one thing to share information and it’s another to interpret it. Information has to be provided in a way that’s useful. Most agency personnel and attorneys are not expert enough to provide updated information. Agencies are beginning to recognize they are not sure how to present information in a way that’s useful to prospective adoptive parents. It’s important that we not just focus on the issue of the right of prospective adoptive parents to have information, but that they have information they can use. What does risk really mean? It’s difficult to predict from medical or psychosocial information to long term outcomes.

O’Fallon: This is applicable to attachment issues where kids have difficulty trusting adoptive parents. She doesn’t know if families are presented information around when kids have poor caretaking from age zero to 1, multiple moves and many factors that may affect the ability to trust. Placing agencies and social workers have the responsibility to give the big picture.

With prenatal exposure to drugs and alcohol and attachment, parents have the most difficult time understanding what will happen and how they will have to treat children differently.

5. Dr. Dana Johnson commented that the trend has been towards informing families of complicated medical issues especially for children who have been institutionalized. Adoptions used to be low risk medically because many children were in Korea, from single parents who were in foster care. With adoption opening up to Eastern European countries, it has become much more difficult for parents to understand the effects of malnutrition and early deprivation. Expectations are the key issue.

Regarding absolving agencies, he has been involved with a lot of wrongful adoption suits. Most of the time, the families who are suing had the information in their hands but didn’t go to get it interpreted.

Behavioral and emotional issues often relate to drug and alcohol exposure. A child who cannot communicate or communicate in an adverse way is where families get stressed as opposed to medical conditions like hepatitis or cerebral palsy.

If families are scared out of programs, that is not a bad thing.

6. A person who operates a domestic adoption program asked for feedback on some of her practices. She doesn’t routinely show photos of newborns because they represent all that is hopeful and then the prospective parents don’t listen to the child’s background. She has found that alcohol is far more devastating than any other substance, but because it’s legal, she also finds that many birth parents underreport so she tells prospective adoptive parents that because of the birth parent’s lifestyle, she believes there is far more use.

O’Fallon: Suggests a parent-to-parent model, so prospective parents can meet other parents of kids with FAE issues.

7. A mother commented that she was not hearing ongoing information being mentioned. The flow of medical information is very important as an ongoing resource. If a mother who relinquishes is a young woman, her medical history consists of when she had chicken pox and later, after relinquishing, she could develop heart disease or cancer or illnesses that might be important to know. What is the ethical responsibility of agencies to pass on that information? She knows that they don’t in most cases.

Is there any ethical responsibility for information to be passed the other way? The author of The Same Smile relinquished a child and a subsequent child developed leukemia. She begged that information to be passed on and it wasn’t. Seems to be an ethical responsibility on the part of agencies both ways.

Moderator: From a legal perspective, no law would allow for enforceability of post-adoption info.

Johnson: Should agencies be collecting DNA from birthfather and mother at time of domestic or international adoption and archiving it to the day when we can do an analysis of the genome?

O’Fallon: Open adoptions would eliminate these problems. It’s secrecy and closed records that are creating this situation.

Oreskovic: For pre-adoption medicals, is there any research that demonstrates a different developmental trajectory among internationally adopted children, especially boys who don’t fall into clinical populations? For example, short-term post-institutional issues that may affect relationships with other children, maturity levels, etc.? Johnson replied that the problem is that the research deals with populations, not individuals. There is some data regarding long-term issues for children adopted from institutional settings. Risk factors have to do with deprivation early in life in terms of physical and sexual abuse. There are genes with only one copy in males that will predispose them to more conduct disorders if abused early in life if a certain enzyme is present. Other studies have shown no boy/girl differences except attention issues for males getting into early adolescence issues and having more behavioral issues.

8. A domestic agency worker commented that she knows of no other way to practice ethically than to pass on information from the birth family. If they have a birth parent who has placed more than once and doesn’t place with the same family, she immediately put both families in touch with each other. Her agency started contracting with a cord blood banking business. A lot of families are banking cord blood to help with medical issues later on.

Usha

Baby trafficking in Sri Lanka

2008-03-18T20:27:00.000-07:00

In December, police in Sri Lanka found a newborn who had been grabbed at Colombo Hospital while his mother was in the restroom. Admidst much public attention including the President of Sri Lanka, police searched around the clock and apprehended the woman who allegedly snatched the infant. Two more infants were kidnapped from the same hospital and police were questioning the same woman in connection with those stolen babies.

The kidnapping at Colombo Hospital in December prompted an investigation by the CID of three major state-run hospitals in Sri Lanka, probing into what may be a large baby smuggling ring and document forgery racket: the De Soysa Women’s Hospital, the Castle Street Hospital for Women and the Colombo South Teaching Hospital. The investigations were also prompted by the kidnapping of a newborn from the Kalubowila Hospital and the disappearance of another child from the same hospital.

The CID is looking for a “wealthy” woman who is believed to be the mastermind behind the alleged baby trafficking ring, Kompanna Veediya. Several hospital workers were allegedly in on the racket which was revealed after the attempt a Dutch couple to smuggle a Sri Lankan baby out of the country. It is suspected that at least four babies have already been smuggled out of the country in the past year. According to CID ASP Mewan Silva, the hospital employees at Castle Hospital target mothers with various problems including financial difficulties and convince them to turn over their babies to be adopted by rich families. Veediya reportedly pays the hospital employees between Rs 5,000 and 10,000 per baby.

At De Soysa Hospital, investigations revealed that two babies born on different dates in 2005 were issued birth certificates with the same number by the hospital. It was reported that the registrar at De Soysa Hospital would be arrested shortly. According to a source at the National Child Protection Authority, “in some instances, the hospital authorities seem to hand over blank ‘birth declaration forms’ to people, so that anyone can fill in any details they want. That explains how bogus names are listed as those of the actual mother and father.”

Regarding the case of a Dutch woman who had allegedly given birth at Nagoda Hospital, a former mayor and another individual who were charged under the Penal Code with cheating, forging documents and child trafficking, was scheduled to be heard by the Colombo High Court on February 8. That transaction allegedly cost Rs. 750,000.

Another case involves four suspects who were remanded for allegedly attempting to smuggle a baby girl out of the country to Dubai on January 6 using forged documents. Those being held in the case are the woman who was allegedly attempting to smuggle the baby, her mother, the biological mother of the baby and an employee of the Castle Street Hospital for Women who was allegedly the middleman. The mother and daughter who were arrested reportedly paid Rs. 85,000 to the hospital employee for the baby girl and the employee reportedly persuaded the biological mother to give up the baby. The daughter who was arrested is an accountant married to an electrical engineer and were described as desperate to have a baby after struggling through infertility.

Usha

Major baby trafficking racket bared, January 12, 2008, Daily Mirror

Sri Lanka family reunited with abducted baby on Christmas Eve, December 24, 2007, Lanka Business Online

Baby racket in three major hospitals, January 27, 2008, Sunday Times Online

Workshop 4.3: Ethical Issues in New Reproductive Technologies

2008-03-18T20:25:00.000-07:00

Ethics and Accountability Conference
Sponsored by Ethica and Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute
October 15-16, 2007

Bullet points for discussion during Workshop 4.3:

Which ethical issues in adoption should apply to the professionals, donors and recipients of new reproductive technologies – and which should not?

Are there aspects of new reproductive technologies that raise questions related to “the best interest of the child”?

Are there ethical issues that require attention regarding donors’ and recipients’ participation in these technologies?

What laws, policies and “best practices” should be applied to reproductive technology practitioners, donors and recipients in the U.S.?

Panelists:

Jean Benward, LCSW is a psychotherapist with over 25 years of experience in the areas of adoption, infertility, and donor conception. In her private practice, she works with adoptive families, adoptees, and individuals considering use of donor gametes for family formation. In 1994, Ms. Benward joined the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), where she has spoken at several symposia and postgraduate courses. She served as a member of its Mental Health Professional Group (MHPG) Executive Committee for seven years, is former MHPG chair and former co-chair of its donor registry task force. She has presented at conferences of the ASRM, the American Society for Bioethics and Humanism, the Evan B Donaldson Adoption Institute, the American Adoption Congress, and Resolve. Ms. Benward currently is co-president of the Board of Directors of the Sperm Bank of California and has been a consultant on the Sperm Bank’s identity release task force for seven years. Her clinical background includes several years as a clinical supervisor and adjunct professor, training graduate students in child and family therapy and providing consultation to the staff of child treatment programs. Ms. Benward holds an undergraduate degree from Barnard College and a graduate degree from the Columbia University School of Social Work.

Naomi Cahn is Associate Dean for Faculty Development and John Theodore Fey Research Professor of Law at George Washington University Law School. Her areas of expertise include family law, reproductive technology, and adoption law. She has written numerous law review articles on family law and other subjects, and has co-authored several books, including Contemporary Family Law (Thomson/West 2006), Families By Law: An Adoption Reader (NYU Press 2004), and Confinements: Fertility and Infertility in Contemporary Culture (Rutgers University Press 1997). Her current project is a book tentatively titled, The Parent Plan: A Legal Examination of the Means of Collaborative Reproduction (forthcoming NYU Press). She is the Legal Intersections Co-Editor of Adoption Quarterly. From 2002 to 2004, Professor Cahn was on leave in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Prior to joining the faculty at George Washington in 1993, Professor Cahn practiced with Hogan & Hartson in Washington, DC, and as a staff attorney with Philadelphia’s Community Legal Services, where she represented clients in the abuse and neglect system.

Bill Cordray is an architect practicing in Salt Lake City, Utah and an advocate for people conceived through donor insemination (DI). Mr. Corday was born through DI conception in July 1945; at age 37, his mother disclosed his conception. Since that time, he has been an outspoken critic of reproductive technologies in the media, at conferences, on the Internet, and on an interpersonal level. His work focuses on eliminating secrecy within DI families, promoting early disclosure to children, ending anonymity in gamete donation, and proclaiming the retrospective right of access of DI adults to the identity of their mother’s sperm donor. Mr. Cordray’s web site seeks to give a voice to the rapidly growing numbers of DI adults who want to speak freely about their experiences. Mr. Cordray regularly presents at conferences on DI. He has appeared in television interviews and documentaries in Utah, in the US national media, and in the media of Canada, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Japan. Mr. Cordray holds a BA in English and a Masters in Architecture from the University of Utah.

Susan Golombok is Professor of Family Research and Director of the Centre for Family Research as a member of the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Cambridge, England. Her research examines the impact on children’s social, emotional and identity development and on parent-child relationships when children are reared in new family forms. Her work has focused on these issues in relation to lesbian mother families, solo mother families, and families created by assisted reproduction procedures such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF), donor insemination, egg donation and surrogacy. Professor Golombok is the author of Parenting: What really counts? and co-author of Bottling it up, Growing up in a lesbian family and Modern Psychometrics.

Adam Pertman, Executive Director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, is also the Associate Editor of Adoption Quarterly, the premier professional journal in its field, and is the author of Adoption Nation, which was named Book of the Year by the National Adoption Foundation and has been reviewed as “the most important book ever written on the subject.” He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his writing about adoption in The Boston Globe, where he was a senior reporter and editor for 22 years before turning his career toward adoption. Pertman’s other honors include: the Angel in Adoption Award from the U.S. Congress; the Special Friend of Children Award from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists; the Friend of Adoption Award from the ODS Adoption Community of New England; the Dave Thomas Center for Adoption Law’s first award for “the nation’s greatest contributor to public understanding about adoption and permanency placement issues”; the American Adoption Congress’ first award to the journalist who has done most to inform our nation about adoption and “for his eloquent witnessing of contemporary adoption”; and the Year 2000 Journalism Award from Holt International Children’s Services.

Jean Benward

Her professional career started 25 years ago working with adoption issues. 15-20 years later, her professional focus moved to reproductive technology issues especially donor conceived families

People in adoption tend to feel strongly about the similarities between adoption and donor conception. Professionals and families affected by donor conception tend to not feel that adoption is a model that can be translated.

Similarities between adoption and donor conception:
Premises and belief that there is shame and secrecy, families formed this way dealt with stigma and isolation, power held by professionals, birth parents deemed invisible and deemed important to banish them from families they helped create.
In 1970s, begin to see the voices of adoptees and birth parents resulting in grassroots change in adoption practice. Openness is valued, birth parent connections deemed important and of significance to adoptees, families are supported in the larger community with resources, laws changed, and adoptees are supported in search.
Donor conception is pretty much the same since when it began until relatively recently. There is an emerging change in how people think about donor conception. ASRM goes on record of advocating disclosure of donor conception to offspring. Now seeing grassroots efforts outside of professionals where people are seeking to connect with each other. Identity release programs guarantee offspring identifying information about sperm donors. Abolition of anonymity is becoming increasingly widespread around the world. In other countries, donors cannot be anonymous.
In the environment in which donor conceived families live, there is a tremendous amount of stigma and emotional impetus behind fear of disclosure.

How are donors viewed? As biological fathers? People in adoption tend to put them in same category as birth parents, but donors go into this not thinking of offspring as children of the type one nurtures and lives with. On the other hand, they have significant meaning to offspring and vice versa but we don’t have a vocabulary for understanding these connections. Offspring and donors will help create the context for understanding these connections.

Ethics – both fields face identical issues, for example, the role of commercialism, how the practice is market driven, participants are subject to exploitation, professionals still assume power in the transactions, and issue of openness.

Naomi Cahn

Her husband is an adoptee who searched about 10 years ago and that has influenced her perceptions in much of this field. Before he searched, she went through a reproductive technology clinic where donor eggs were suggested. She did not go that route, but her reaction guides her as she thinks through much of this.

Similarities between adoption and reproductive technology: forming families with outside help. Issues of tort suits that overlap with respect to misrepresentations, issues of fertility tourism, and overlap in professionals involved in both fields.

Enormous differences between adoption and reproductive technology: Completely different sets of regulations. Adoption is in many ways far ahead of reproductive technologies. Fundamentally different assumptions in each field: adoption at least pays lip service to best interest of child. Best interest of the child is not a hallmark of reproductive technology world. Children’s interest are starting to assume more importance as offspring are coming forward, but it is a very consumer-driven field as a result of lack of regulation. To create a new adoptive relation requires a court order but there is practically no legal involvement in the context of reproductive technology.

Statistics in the reproductive technology field: There are more than 400 fertility clinics nationwide, $3 billion annual business, in 2004 130,000 IVF cycles in the U.S. with 50,000 IVF babies born, half a million frozen embryos, the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology estimates 9,000 donor egg children born in the U.S. in 2005, and an estimated 30,000 donor sperm conceived children born annually. Language in both fields is evolving as there is more sensitivity. Sperm providers and egg providers are not donors.
Unlike adoption, where from the mid 19th century has been distinguished by laws, gamete technology developed with secrecy and little regulation. First known donor conception was in the late 19th from a physician on a woman who never realized there was a donor outsider her husband.

Market forces are strong and well entrenched and there is not same advocacy for best interest of the child. Little incentive to regulate this field further because clinics make a lot of money and parents are willing to pay a lot of money in order to have children. Gamete providers are often in this to make money and so regulation will affect their source of income and many donor conceived children don’t know they are so there is no strong advocacy group there, either. Federal law regulates the safety and health of donated tissue including sperm and eggs which are regulated primarily against transmission of AIDS. About 35 states deal with parenthood issues when it comes to sperm, only 4-5 states when it comes to eggs and only 1-2 states when it comes to embryos: Louisiana and Florida. There is some movement to limit prices but studies show it is not successful because there is state oversight over adoption but not the reproductive technology system.

For the future, secrecy in both areas is starting to crack a bit. Parenthood issues to be resolved.

Bill Cordray

Donor insemination in his point of view is a form of adoption. He has a problem with perceiving it as something else. It comes from the fact that the language is determined by the medical profession so people are asked to believe all we are dealing with are tissues. When we see sperm, think original father; embryos, original families; eggs, original mothers. Sperm, eggs and embryos are part of adoption too.

DI people don’t have much of a voice. He is reluctantly taking that role because few are doing it. He wants to take command of how language is forming and how we see ethical issues by humanizing it. He is tired of being infantilized. He doesn’t want to use best interests of child for determining ethics, but rather, the best interests of vulnerable human beings who have no say in how contracts or transactions are occurring.

DI has sociological and psychological issues that the medical profession does not see because they see the end as the baby in the cradle.

2 other common axioms:
1. adopted person is anyone who has no connection to genetic parents, therefore, he considers himself an adopted person because he doesn’t know who his birth father is
2. DI people have a right to know about their origins and have this info disclosed to them. This is not happening in many DI adoption families. He likes to focus on DI because it is the primary way reproductive technology families are being formed.

Differences between DI and traditional adoption: Lack of regulation. There are contracts signed by donors and by prospective adoptive parents that require they not try to find the identity of the other person. Legal aspects are strange because the medical profession is treating it in a laissez faire manner in the U.S. so anything the doctor does is right and ethical because they have a code of ethics, but in reality, it has evolved into a business and is the least regulated of all medical branches and technically is not medicine. Anyone can be involved in donor insemination with a turkey baster.

Best practices and laws that should apply: There should be independent counseling that ensures true informed consent. The lack of informed consent is astounding. Clinics don’t even know the truth of what it means to be conceived through anonymous gametes. Part of human fabric, texture and makeup of child and should not dehumanize it.

We need mechanisms to ensure disclosure and take away liberty of contract clinics enjoy because it is not a valid legal stance in the medical profession. These records need to belong to the courts like in adoption. Records ought to be considered a property right of identity to offspring. It’s about time we started honoring the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child.

As in adoption, DI individuals don’t have their original birth certificates either.

Susan Golombok
Discussed ethical issues with respect to different kinds of reproductive technology:

1) “high tech” families – involves, procedures such as IVF, ICSI, and sometimes gamete donation. Kinds of concerns raised:

Theory that parents who have gone through years of infertility and have a very much wanted child will be overprotective parents and will have high expectations of their child or themselves as parents which causes tension and stress in family. In summarizing findings of many studies worldwide, these concerns about these families are unfounded. If anything, studies show quality of relationships are in a sense more positive.

One area where there is a problem is in high number of multiple births. 1% of natural births result in multiples. With high tech procedures, usually 25-33% of pregnancies result in multiples. With multiples, there is an increased rate of prematurity and health related problems, disability and psychological functioning e.g., language development and for parents themselves, especially those who have triplets or more, experience extreme stress with large numbers of children growing up at same age. Some European countries have legislated only 1-2 embryos can be transferred whereas there is no legislation in the U.S. Should the number of embryos that may be transferred be limited?

2) gamete donation

A number of groups have carried out large scale studies of children conceived through gamete donation. Generally, the children don’t seem to be in any way experiencing psychological problems as a result of this method of conception but a striking finding is that a majority of parents until recently have not disclosed donor conception origins. More recent studies have shown disclosure to children in very early years seems to be the best way. There is a movement toward openness.

Donor siblings, donors and parents are making contact. Some have found up to 55 siblings. When there has been contact, there has been generally a positive experience.

3) Non-traditional families – includes same sex parents and single heterosexual women who have conceived through donor insemination.

We now have 30 years of research for same sex parents with no evidence of problems that were thought would arise

There is less research available with respect to single parents.

4) surrogacy

One study in UK follows children at ages 1, 2 and 3 with NIH funding to study at ages 5 and 7.

Should restriction be placed on the number of embryos that may be transferred? Should offspring have access to the identity of donors? Who should be donors, for example family members? Should donors be paid? Should parents be screened?

Questions:

1. Adam Pertman commented that he could not understand how one could not tell the child about the donation. How do they deal with their medical history?

Cordray: He is creating his own research on the attitudes of donor-conceived adults.

2. A member of ASRM and RESOLVE commented on the importance of counseling. She has had women who are pregnant through egg donation who are considering abortion because they have not been helped with their feelings and they feel like they are carrying an alien. ASRM took the position of advising disclosure to children last year.

Benward: Having been on both sides, she notes that families conceived by donor conception still face a huge amount of stigma and hold a lot of pain whereas it’s easier for adoptive parents to find support. The idea of overprotectiveness represents a stereotype and stigma and disapproval of families formed thru ART. There is a great deal of unacceptance and negative assumptions about parents who have conceived through ART.

Cahn: More recent studies on adoptive families have found little difference in parenting and in fact, parenting qualifies as extremely good.

3. A director of an adoption program in California presented a dilemma she faced. A couple approached her agency to adopt. They had two children from her eggs and her husband’s brother’s sperm and they were not going to tell the children. Now they wanted to adopt and were open to open adoption. She made a decision to say no to that family because she felt like their children were adopted too and she was concerned the adopted child would find out. The family was incredulous. She felt her responsibility was the best interest of adopted child and there was no shortage of families because the child was a newborn.

Cordray: Commented that this happens quite a bit in DI families.

Someone commented that increasingly folks getting donor insemination are getting counseling and can get them to a point where they are open to disclosure. It’s harder for family to keep the secret over the long haul. Often, 5-10 people know outside the child.

4. A student at Duke University/adoptee commented that shame and stigma is not an option for lesbians who are trying to get pregnant. She also asked for feedback on fertility tourism where industries are developing in places like India and people are traveling from wealthier countries to other countries. She has serious concerns about this as an adoptee.

Cahn: studies show same sex parents or single parents are most likely to disclose facts of conception to their children. Regarding fertility tourism, there are the same issues of exploitation as in adoption. It is also a way of completely escaping regulation. In adoption, have to finalize the relationship, but not in fertility tourism

Golombok: Paradoxical because in some countries, surrogacy has become regulated or subject to legislation so people travel to other countries where it is allowed.

5. A mother/lawyer asked if there are studies following surrogates and egg donors to see how well they are doing? The egg donor is having invasive surgery and is in desperate need of independent counseling, but women usually give eggs because of big bucks and do not get independent counseling and are every bit as vulnerable as birth mothers.

Cordray: They are birth mothers.

Golombok: Egg donor studies have been done by Andrea Braverman. Vasanti has taken the lead in following up with 34 surrogate mothers two years after birth of the child.

Benward: Have seen egg donors interviewed and screened. It does them a disservice to see them as victims. They are adult, competent women who should be treated as such. Granted, as fees go up, it induces women to lie or do it if they otherwise wouldn’t. She has met many women over the years who like the money, but that isn’t the only reason they do it. It is not easy to find egg donors and many who have donated have thought about it for a year, researched it and talked to family about it.

6. A self-identified queer/bastard wanted to address the language issue. As an adopted person, it is painful to hear Bill say we are not children. It is very difficult in these conversations to hear that the people who are the result of these processes are children and don’t have legal rights. It would be really nice if they were treated as free agents within the course of these conversations. Words like “offspring” and “children” are very difficult to hear from her perspective. Concerned about language like “donor” because so much comes down to money and calling them donors hides that.

She has looked into the way the U.S. is treating frozen embryos. There are a set of laws prohibiting frozen embryos from being destroyed. In Louisiana, embryos can be defrosted to be implanted in a married woman for the prospect of pregnancy. One and only option is that embryos end up in snowflake adoption which is really embryo transfer.

Usha

Workshop 2.5: Supporting Adopted Children After Adoption: What are Their Post-Placement Needs?

2008-02-22T18:03:00.000-08:00

Ethics and Accountability Conference
Sponsored by Ethica and Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute
October 15-16, 2007

Bullet points for discussion during Workshop 2.5:

What are the most important needs of adopted persons after adoption – both in the short and long term?
To what extent to current practices and policies respond effectively to these needs?
What new services and supports are needed to ensure that the needs of adopted persons are met?

Panelists:

Carrie Kent is the Director of Research for Ethica, Inc. and an adoptive mother of two children, Jack and Desiree. She is active both locally and nationally in issues related to openness in adoption, as well as transethnic placement. She has been co-owner of the XcultureAdopt list for four years and has spoken at the 1999 Traverse City Open Adoption Conference, the fall 2000 LifeGivers Workshop at Higgins Lake, Michigan, and the 2003 Open Door Society spring conference. In her “day job,” she is head of Research Services at Harvard University’s Widener Library, and is an as-of-yet unpublished novelist.

Joyce Maguire Pavao, Ed.D., LCSW, LMFT, is the Founder and CEO of Center For Family Connections, Inc. (CFFC - est. 1995) in Cambridge, MA and New York. Dr. Pavao has done extensive training, both nationally and internationally. She is an adjunct faculty member in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and has consulted to various public and private agencies, schools, and the court system. She works closely with individuals and families created by adoption, foster care and other complex blended family constructions. She has developed models for treatment and training using her systemic, intergenerational, and developmental framework, The Normative Crises in the Development of the Adoptive Family. Her book, The Family of Adoption, has received high acclaim. Dr. Pavao has received many awards and honors, including the Adoption Excellence Award for Family Contribution (2003) and the Angels in Adoption award (2000).

Debbie B Riley is Executive Director of The Center for Adoption Support and Education, Inc. (C.A.S.E.), an independent post-adoption organization in the Baltimore-Washington area and co-author of Beneath the Mask: Understanding Adopted Teens. Since 1993, her work has focused exclusively on the field of adoption. She has created a continuum of post-adoption programs in the Washington, DC area and a variety of innovative and effective programs to address the complex needs of families with a variety of adoption backgrounds, including public and private, international and domestic. Ms. Riley presents both locally and nationally on numerous topics related to adoption and adolescent mental health. She serves on the Research and Practice Committee of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, the Editorial Committee for the Adoptive Families Magazine, and the Children’s Agenda Advisory Committee of the Montgomery County Collaboration Council for Children, Youth, and Families. Ms. Riley holds a Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from the University of Maryland. She is the adoptive mom of a teenage son.

Indigo Willing OAM, is a doctoral student at The University of Queensland, Australia. Her research interests include transnational families and migration, as well as links among race, culture and child welfare services. Her thesis focuses on the experiences of Australian parents who have adopted children from Asia and Africa. Ms. Willing was adopted from Vietnam into a white Australian family in 1972, and as a young adult, she received a Medal in the Order of Australia in 2006, in recognition of her work in developing the Adopted Vietnamese International community network. This network is dedicated to assisting adopted people from the Vietnam War and their adoptive families to develop stronger connections to Vietnamese culture, history and surviving/missing relatives. The network works closely with a range of adoption groups in Australia.

Debbie Riley

When she thought about what are the most important needs of adoptees post-adoption and what extent current practices and policies respond effectively to the issues discussed by this panel, she came to the realization that adoption professionals know that there are normal but complex issues facing adopted persons, many of whom will seek professional services in charting their adoption journey.
Adoption is not a one-time event but a lifelong process that warrants specialized support upon the way.
Most important need of adopted persons is the funding, availability, accessibility and quality of adoption-competent mental health services. Current socio-political factors don’t ensure the availability of these services. It is the ethical and legal obligation of her field to ensure all adopted persons have access to competent mental health services. Why are the children with the most complex adoption and mental health needs being referred and seen by the least qualified experienced clinicians?
The Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Work states that when generally accepted standards do not exist with respect to an emerging area of practice, then they should exercise careful judgement and take responsible steps with respect to education, training, consultation and supervision to ensure competency in their work and to protect clients from harm.
We must join together to expand the knowledge base of practitioners set the standards for competency through federal, state and local collaborations and advocate for flexible funding streams to sustain the services. Adoption competent providers can be instrumental in ensuring positive outcomes for adoptees and their families.

It is our ethical responsibility to ensure that adoptive families have access to high quality adoption services.

Indigo Willing

Shared insight from the Australian perspective.

Since 2000 she has been working with adopted Vietnamese war orphans. She runs a search registry for people looking for relatives and notes the paucity of resources. Her doctoral studies focus on the identity construction of adoptive parents and how they negotiate problems of adoption.
Australia is undergoing several adoption legislation reviews at the state level and has just had a federal inquiry into the adoption process. People are speaking up and saying things need to be changed, but who are being heard?
Adoptees are highly experienced adoption educators and run excellent support groups among themselves, but they are rarely funded and rarely heard.
Most common issues adopted people are focusing on with respect to post-adoption needs:
1. Representation – the need for adoption institutions, agencies and groups etc. to allow for adult adoptee perspectives to illuminate both the strengths and weaknesses of the practices. Also a push to call for adoptee inclusion on more boards, committees and forums.
2. Administration – need for tighter record keeping, inclusive fees planning for services such as searching for birth parent assistance, return visits and counseling support. A lot of uproar in Australia at the moment for fees to adopt. None of those fee increases are covering post-adoption services other than 2,000 per year for a festival where children can dress in their national costume.
3. Transnational planning – providing guidance and services relating to assisting adoptees who embark on return trips. A lot of adoptees travel independently and find themselves thrown in the deep end. They are left in an incredibly vulnerable place. If so much preparation goes into bringing these children overseas, surely some preparation could exist to help them return to explore birth countries.
4. Cultural strategies – offering of programs dedicated to issues such as language and cross-cultural competency. For example, the documentary Daughter from Danang illustrated a cross- cultural collision.
5. Ensuring emotional and psychological capital – relates to making sure there are suitable programs and appropriately educated counselors who can assist adopted people manage issues related to their emotional well being and mental health. There is no post-adoption training for people like psychologists and family health practitioners in Australia.
Education, if it does exist, generally consists of getting volunteer adoptees to speak about their life story. Would like to see stronger programs being built.

Joyce Maguire Pavao

What adoption is not: adoption is not a problem, illness or a bad thing though it stems from what many think are problems. Society tends to view adoption as a problem. It’s very important to realize that pathologizing leads to pathology and a lot of that goes on in adoption and is that ethical?
Adoption is taking on and extending or making of family by admitting others to the clan and claiming them as relatives as in marriage. It is a lifelong process and it affects the generations before and after in many direct and indirect ways. It is complex, it is never simple.
Cannot focus on post-adoption needs of the child without focusing on the parents. If you don’t take care of the adults, the child isn’t taken care of. We need to provide more support and services to foster families.
With respect to birth parents, it is important to pay attention not just in the moment, but post-adoption these issues go on. There’s a developmental process for birth parents. We are not doing enough for birth parents, they are hardly considered. If you care about the child, you care about all of their parents. This includes parents whose children were removed – the children are in permanent homes and messages they give those children will make a huge difference in the emotional stability of their child.
For adoptive parents, there are ongoing needs. Often it comes in the guise of the children’s needs, but parents have developmental issues, including in and out of doubt about feeling genuine.
Therapy is not the answer to everything. Need to provide consultations and programs and not necessarily be in therapy.
Developmental issues for children – many points in time where things will come up that are quickly pathologized. Under anger lies sadness or fear. Larger community needs to have education e.g., schools where learning disabilities diagnosed are in fact teaching disabilities; medical and health professionals – rampant medications and crazy therapies done in the name of attachment, bizarre overdosing of adult medications for kids is unethical. Need to have extended family educated

Discussion from Workshop 2.5

Question 1.A person from CASE raised concerns with other mental health professionals. Instead of pathologizing adoption, they minimize and fail to recognize normal reactions to adoption. They suggest other things are going on instead of validating what is happening is normal. Are there more ideas of how to educate other professionals?

Riley: It’s been a delicate balance for many years of how much to attribute to adoption. Education is important.

Willing: She is a sociologist by training, but sees attachment come up a lot. It’s important to remind parents to keep a critical mind and do research.

Question 2. An adoptive parent/adoption worker referenced developmental stages members of the triad undergo and requested references.

Pavao: A lot of the grass roots organizations can be helpful. For example Lee Campbell of Concerned United Birthparents put together material on developmental issues of birthparents; she has a long vision of birthparenthood. There is also Romanchik’s organization. For adoptive parents, there are wonderful adoptive parent networks. Always go to the elders, parents whose children are in 30's and 40's and who have kept up with the times. Some people are better at some stages than others. The family is an organism, so it is important to see how everyone is relating to each other. Adult adoptee groups are incredibly important for people to listen to. Find people who can reflect on things.

Willing: Sometimes the diagnosis of adult adoptees is wrong. For example, low-self esteem is attributed to being separated from mothers. That may be true, but a more well rounded approach needed, for example, an examination of what else is going on in their lives like racism. Look at studies by adoptees in addition to personal narratives.

Question 3. Another adoptive parent/adoption worker wondered how we can help better prepare families in adoption by saying that post-placement services are more likely than if they had given birth to a child because there will be an added layer of issues.

Pavao: People should be trained to provide them. Important the services not all be therapy, but often need consultation and support.

Riley: We need to start advocating for the funding and that these services are accessible.

Question 4. An adoptive parent and educator said he tried to start a club for adoptees at his high school but he ran into confidentiality laws. Doesn’t know how to go about it.

Pavao: Suggest normalize it by expanding it, for example, to kids who live in complex families. Emotional and psychological issues are the same even if the legal situation is different. The kids may feel pathologized if limited to adoptees.

Riley: Look at the environment. A lot of adoptive parents don’t want their children to share they are adopted because of the stigma attached to them. See how one can create adoption sensitivity among peers.

Willing: As a teen, there might be issues of gender. At an adoption camp in Australia they showed a video with stories by intercountry adoptees who were a little older. Accompanying that they showed the movie Transformers and lots of boys came. Adoptive father groups have football days.

Question 5. Someone from Open asked what if you have parents who are in denial or who are reluctant? How do you draw these parents in?

Pavao: Help isn’t help unless you want it. No one starts out gung ho understanding all of this, but opens up along the way. Pre-adoption, prospective adoptive parents may not be interested even if they attend pre-adoption education, but they will have the information to get more help when needed. Sometimes information doesn’t take seed for awhile.

Willing: There is a real need for this. Can’t adopt in Australia without going through a state agency. Reasonably good program in the pre-adoption stage where prospective adoptive parents needs to go through education sessions, provide a life storybook, and undertake home studies. Adoptive parents have to compete for children so they join networks to learn how to get through the system and make friendships that way and then are keen to learn more, but there are not enough professionals to do the training.

Question 6. A mother said she runs an online support group for individuals who worked with her network of agencies she lost her daughter to. So she is in a position to help even though she is not a professional. What other things can she do besides recommend books?

Pavao: Suggests reading, going to conferences and lectures, support groups. Worry about the word “support groups” sometimes. Some like the information but don’t like the name. Hearing other people normalizes experiences.

Riley: Something she has found useful is journaling.

Question 7. An adoptive parent/adoption social worker asked whether there is a need for more professional standards when it comes to adoption social work in schools of social work. Should there be more standards of practice across the board?

Riley: Yes, there should be. What is an adoption-competent therapist? There is no standardization of knowledge base or core competency. It is important that we come up with standards before an outside entity does.

Pavao: Post-graduate programs are great but they are not nearly enough. Supervision is a key factor, for example, in the child welfare system people often become supervisors if they are near retirement and are going part time. There should be a lot more done to make sure people are trained.

Question 8. Adoptive parent/adoption worker ask about the importance of providing services to siblings, both biological and adoptive.

Pavao: Siblings really need support. We don’t do enough work with siblings before a placement or before removal.

Riley: Do siblings get to be a part of the process? Doesn’t want to see the child as separate from everyone else and usually siblings are left out entirely.

Usha

Republic of Togo Suspends Child Adoption

2008-02-22T18:02:00.000-08:00

On February 7, the Togolese government suspended all forms of child adoption due to problems in its adoption system. According to the government, courts granted adoptions on the basis of "abandonment judgments without any social inquiry" while overlooking adoption procedures. The President of Togo, Faure Gnassingbe, asked the Minister of Social Actions and Minister of Justice, to create order in child adoption procedures, settle adoption within Togo in the interest of parties outside the country and clarify legal procedures for children’s law.

Usha

Togo Suspends Child Adoption, Mathaba News Agency, February 11, 2008

Togo: Togolese Government Suspends Child Adoption, allAfrica.com, February 8, 2008

Book Review: Once a Mother: Relinquishment and adoption from the perspective of unmarried mothers in South India by Pien Bos

2008-02-04T18:10:00.000-08:00

Pien Bos is an education specialist and anthropologist who worked in the adoption field before becoming a researcher in 2001. Once a Mother is her dissertation published resulting from two years of field work in South India with mothers, families and social welfare NGOs. Pien Bos defended her dissertation on January 10, 2008 for which she received a PhD with distinction from Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

The subject of the book is the mostly unheard “supply side” of the adoption equation: first mothers in India. The goal of Bos’ research was to fill this knowledge gap and document and probe the process of child relinquishment from the perspective of their mothers. In this respect, Once a Mother is equivalent to The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade in that Bos documents present-day relinquishment practices in South India which are in many ways reminiscent of the Baby Scoop Era in the United States.

Bos interviewed 36 mothers whose factual circumstances varied widely, both in their socioeconomic station in life as well as the circumstances of their children’s conception. Seven of these mothers had relinquished their child at least 15 years earlier. The other 29 were in the process of relinquishing. In addition, Bos interviewed 16 other mothers who decided not to relinquish and were raising their children on their own.

From her fieldwork, Bos developed three main findings:

1. Many mothers who relinquished their children considered themselves married, not unmarried.

The social stigma of unwed motherhood is generally assumed to be the primary reason why children are surrendered for adoption in India. However, Bos notes that many of the mothers she interviewed adopted a more flexible and informal definition of marriage, specifically the tying by a man of a “tali” to a woman without regard to other ceremonies and formalisation. The varying interpretations of marital status tended to be denied by institutions.

2. Blood bond in general, and the blood bond between mother and child specifically, has an extremely significant cultural meaning in Tamil culture. The cultural significance of motherhood, in combination with the meaning of the notion mother in its broader cultural sense implies that motherhood is irreplaceable and life-long. Despite the legal significance of relinquishment, mothers continued to view themselves as their children’s mothers who handed over care of their children to others, but not their motherhood.

Although care of the child was transferable, motherhood is not. According to Bos, “[b]iological mothers of surrendered children still felt and eventually claimed to be the only true mother, and this aspect explained feelings, hopes and eventual expectations after adoption, for instance with regard to possible future reunions with their children.” Bos found that some mothers tended to relinquish out of a sense of gratitude to the NGO for taking them in: “[K]eeping the baby would imply the breach of an informal agreement and some mothers also assumed they would be charged an amount comparable to adoption fees for reclaiming their child.”

Reunion with a surrendered child was a recurring theme in Bos’ research. For this topic, in particular, differences in the individual perceptions and processes of mothers emerged. Whereas one mother raised the issue spontaneously as a consolation after surrendering her beloved baby; for another, the idea of reunion appeared a worse-case scenario. Bos discovered that time was an influential factor in a mother’s attitude towards a potential reunion. Some mothers who took into account their circumstances decades after relinquishment did not immediately reject a future reunion. Married mothers in particular expressed a strong urge to meet their surrendered children again. Despite the interest of many adoptees and biological mothers in reuniting, Bos found that adoption agencies typically do not seriously cooperate in searching for biological families to the point of actively obstructing such searches. The people working for NGOs typically assume that secrecy is demanded to protect the lives of mothers, without regard to the circumstances of the actual mother sought to be traced.

3. The relinquishment process is the equivalent of a “fyke” (a funnel-shaped net used to trap fish) where women who enter the social welfare system upon an unexpected pregnancy are set on a single-minded trajectory toward relinquishment.

Bos writes:

“From the moment of admission in a licensed agency, the internal flows and
forces, determined by prevailing dominant discourses, isolation, hierarchy,
loyalties and money are pushing her deeper inside the fyke. She is trapped
until the day she signs a surrender deed. On that day, the mother is
released from the institution and the child receives the status of ‘parentless
child’ until it is placed into an adoptive family.”

Bos finds the discrepancy between the stated objectives of formal adoption rules and daily practices “shocking.”

Bos notes that the consequences of a premarital pregnancy and the decision to relinquish expands beyond the mother and also encompasses her family and community. Hierarchically, mothers are not in a powerful position owing to their youth, lack of money, education and opinion that they “went astray” through engaging in premarital sex. Like mothers in Western countries, particularly during the Baby Scoop era, Indian mothers are strongly influenced and at times completely overruled in their decision of whether to relinquish by family members and/or staff of institutions. “Counseling” of unwed mothers by NGOs typically means advising relinquishment; other options are more commonly explored in the case of married mothers. Some mothers acknowledged the desire to hand over the decision-making process to others, however, Bos met other mothers who revealed that they were manipulated and essentially forced to relinquish against their will. Bos felt that good communication between mothers and their relatives would be beneficial, however, during her field work she discovered that pregnant women or new mothers more often than not were isolated with limited contact with family since they were sequestered through institutionalization or hospitalization. Input in the decision-making process by relatives was often conducted outside the presence or prolonged time spent with the mothers themselves. Bos pleas for informed decision-making; a transmission of cumulative knowledge and sharing with mothers who did or did not surrender.

Bos does an excellent job of noting the inherent conflicts on the part of NGOs that engage in adoption:

“My conclusion is that people on the work floor, practitioners and counselors
working in or for NGOs work with extremely complicated dilemmas. They
balance on a continuum with the voice of their personal conscience, their
perception of acceptable and suitable solutions for women on one side and
financial responsibilities on the other. On the one hand, they need to act
according to the politically correct conventions concerning mothers and their
children; on the other, they need to ‘sell babies’ to adoptive parents to be
able to run their agencies. NGOs are trapped by the construction of an
adoption field where financial income and the placement of children in adoptive
families are intertwined.”

Although legal adoptions are painted as a non-profit endeavor, the fact is that adoption is a lucrative financial means to maintain a flow of money from adopters to licensed NGOs. Bos cites the deleterious impact institutionalization has on the health and welfare of children, and therefore acknowledges that the outflow of children from institutions into foster or adoptive family care can upgrade their lives. However, her research examines how adoption simultaneously “sucks children into residential care” by putting pressure on women to supply babies. Bos concludes that “adoption, as it is legally organized, induces a flow of children towards institutions.”

Bos’ thesis is valuable because it offers a unique exploration voices of the mothers we in the West do not have the opportunity to hear while simultaneously affirming common place present-day attitudes and procedures that conflict with ethical adoption practices.

Once a Mother can be ordered by contacting Pien Bos at p.bos@maw.ru.nl The price is 15.00 euro plus postage.

Usha

Once a Mother: Relinquishment and adoption from the perspective of unmarried mothers, Pien Bos, ISBN 978-90-9022453-4, 2007

Indian women giving up their children for adoption affected by lack of information, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, January 15, 2008

US DOS: A Warning and Concerns About Adoptions from Vietnam

2008-01-29T05:26:00.000-08:00

The US Department of State has issued two Intercountry Adoption News Alerts concerning adoptions from Vietnam: 1) "Warning Concerning Adoptions in Vietnam" and 2)"Vietnam Intercountry Adoption Concerns." Both appear below.

First:

Warning Concerning Adoptions in Vietnam

January 2008

The Department of State warns potential adoptive parents and adoption service providers of the risk of initiating new adoptions from Vietnam at this time. The 2005 Memorandum of Agreement, required by Vietnamese law to authorize adoptions between the United States and Vietnam, expires on September 1, 2008. The United States is strongly committed to continuing intercountry adoptions from Vietnam if possible. Our primary concern is to ensure that the children and families involved in the adoption process are protected from exploitation. The Government of Vietnam shares this concern. Both countries acknowledge that more needs to be done.

Discussions about revision and renewal of the Agreement are a priority for both governments, but there is no certainty a new Agreement will be in place on September 1. In view of the processing time required in Vietnam from placement to the Giving and Receiving Ceremony, an adoption process begun now cannot be completed before the current Agreement expires. We do not know whether the Government of Vietnam will continue to process pending cases if the current Agreement expires before a new Agreement takes effect. Moreover, given concerns about the existing level of protection for children in Vietnam, it is unlikely that the Agreement can be renewed in its current form.

The United States Government stands ready to support Vietnam’s efforts to strengthen and improve accountability in its adoption system and to develop its capacity to regulate adoptions. In some cases, our background investigations have revealed evidence of irregularities, ranging from forged or altered documentation to cases where children have been offered for adoption without the apparent knowledge or consent of their birth parents.

In response to these problems, in November 2007, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service and the Department of State instituted new procedures to verify that children identified for placement meet the requirements of Vietnamese and U.S. law, before the child has been adopted under Vietnamese law. The Embassy strongly advises prospective adoptive parents not to travel to Vietnam until they have received notification from the Embassy that their case is ready for final processing and travel is appropriate. Parents should contact the Embassy immediately if anyone, including their adoption service provider, encourages them to travel to Vietnam prior to receiving this notification. The Embassy can work together with adoption service providers, Vietnam’s Department of International Adoptions, and local authorities to resolve issues such as the scheduling of a Giving and Receiving Ceremony.

We continue to urge Vietnam to comply with the terms of the 2005 Agreement and to establish a process that protects the interests of all parties involved in adoptions.

and secondly:

VIETNAM INTERCOUNTRY ADOPTION CONCERNS

What are the problems with the present Agreement that warrant a renegotiation of the MOU between the two countries at this point in time?
Does the USG want to end all intercountry adoptions from Vietnam?
Why is the U.S. Government issuing this warning?
What steps has the USG undertaken to address concerns about fraud and baby-selling while it is negotiating a new MOA with the Vietnamese government?
What is the USG doing about the families whose cases have been issued Notices of Intent to Deny (NOIDs)?
What is the current status of the NOIDs?
What is the USG’s goal regarding intercountry adoptions from Vietnam?

Q: What are the problems with the present Agreement that warrant a renegotiation of the MOU between the two countries at this point in time?

GVN has not complied with specific terms of our 2005 bilateral Agreement on adoptions which both parties agreed were essential to a process that is transparent and protects the rights of infants and families.

Q: Does the USG want to end all intercountry adoptions from Vietnam?

The USG does not want to end adoptions from Vietnam.
Instead, we hope that this renegotiation process will result in concrete steps towards establishing a more transparent adoption process with the safeguards necessary to protect children, birth parents, and adoptive parents.
Field investigations by USG personnel have revealed evidence of fraud which undermine the reliability of the adoption process in Vietnam.
This evidence requires us to scrutinize individual cases carefully to verify whether the children involved are actually eligible for adoption under Vietnamese and U.S. law.

Q: Why is the U.S. Government issuing this warning?

Vietnamese law, not U.S. law, requires a Memorandum of Agreement. The current Agreement expires on September 1.
We hope that a new Agreement can be finalized before that date.
We cannot predict, however, whether this will be the case and want prospective parents to be aware of that risk.

Q: What steps has the USG undertaken to address concerns about fraud and baby-selling while it is negotiating a new MOA with the Vietnamese government?

The USG has instituted the Orphan First program, under which the USG conducts field investigations to verify the child is eligible for a U.S. visa before the adoption is finalized in Vietnam.
Orphan First allows us to address questions of fraud before the adoption is finalized and spare American parents the pain of learning that an adopted child is not eligible for an immigrant visa.

Q: What is the USG doing about the families whose cases have been issued Notices of Intent to Deny (NOIDs)?

The USG is doing everything in its power to complete these cases quickly.
We know that the period of review of adoption cases is difficult for families, but the U.S. government has a responsibility to ensure that any irregularities in these orphan adoption cases do not undermine the validity of the petition or visa application.

Q: What is the current status of the NOIDs?

Specific questions about NOIDs should be addressed to USCIS, which has responsibility for this process.
Further, out of respect for the privacy of individual families, we cannot discuss individual cases.

Q: What is the USG’s goal regarding intercountry adoptions from Vietnam?

Our goal for Vietnam and for all countires is an intercountry adoption process solidly based on the standards set by the Hague Adoption Convention.
We have strongly urged the GVN to accede to the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, to promptly draft Hague compliant adoption legislation and implementing regulations, and to develop a child welfare infrastructure that will bring Vietnam into conformity with Hague Standards.

Desiree

Warning Concerning Adoptions from Vietnam,US Department of State, 28 January 2008

Vietnam Intercountry Adoption Concerns, US Department of State, 28 January 2008

Austrian Adoption Agency Under Investigation

2008-01-18T19:26:00.000-08:00

An Austrian international adoption agency, Family For You, is being investigated by Vienna’s prosecutor for allegations of implementing “illegal adoption procedures.” The investigation is being prompted by an article published in Falter, an Austrian weekly magazine, detailing the story of a young girl from Ethiopia and adopted to Austria who claims she was stolen from her first family. According to the magazine, the girl’s mother in Ethiopia alleges that Family for You convinced her to give up her child in order to receive money from the agency. The case was investigated last year by the prosecutor but was called off. The case will now be re-opened based on new evidence obtained in December 2007.

The article also traces reports to 2001 by Austrian diplomats who expressed concerns that Family For You worked with “dubious representatives” or orphanages suspected of caring for stolen children in both India and Vietnam.

The director of Family for You, Petra Fembeck, disclaimed any blame on the basis that the agency only interacts with prospective adoptive parents and “others” are the ones who actually take care of the children.

Family For You ceased adoption activities in Ethiopia in July 2007, purportedly due to unnamed problems with local authorities. According to Family For You’s website, continuation of the agency’s activities is now impossible due to recent media coverage and the prosecutor’s investigation.

Usha

Family For You Agency website

Adoption Agency in Child Kidnap Probe, news.com.au, January 9, 2008

Ethics and Accountability Conference 2007 Photos

2007-12-24T17:55:00.000-08:00

Here, finally, are some photos from the Evan B. Donaldson and Ethica Adoption Ethics and Accountability Conference 2007. Most of these are from the Meet the Bloggers Session and the final roundtable session (the empty chairs indicate that not everyone stayed for the final session).

If anyone who attended the conference has any photos they'd like to share, I'd be happy to add them to this slideshow if you send them to me.

Thanks!

Desiree

Workshop 1.4, Part II: Ensuring Ongoing Relationships--Practice That Opens the Door to Connections--Questions & Discussions

2007-12-23T17:55:00.000-08:00

Ethics and Accountability Conference
Sponsored by Ethica and Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute
October 15-16, 2007

Bullet points for discussion during Workshop 1.4:

What key factors should assessments address regarding ongoing connections?
What are characteristics of successful open adoptions? What factors undermine the success of open adoptions?
How can families of origin be best educated on their importance to the children and the roles they can continue to play in their children’s lives?

Panelists:

Marilyn Panichi is the Executive Director of Adoptions Unlimited, Inc. She has more than 35 years of adoption and child welfare experience in administration, supervision and casework. Prior to establishing Adoptions Unlimited, Ms. Panichi was the Executive Director of the Adoption Information Center of Illinois under the auspices of the Child Care Association of Illinois. She began her career with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services as a Child Welfare Worker and Adoption Coordinator. Ms. Panichi earned her Master of Social Work and Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Illinois. She is a member of the National Association of Social Workers and the Academy of Certified Social Workers. Ms Panichi is co-founder of the Adoption Exchange Association where she currently serves as board member and treasurer.

Susan Ogden is the Director of Domestic Adoption at Adoptions Together. She has worked in education and nonprofit program management for 25 years. When she adopted her daughter Sasha in 1992, Ms. Ogden became an advocate for better understanding of open adoption. Her daughter enjoys an open relationship with her birth mother, birth sister and birth father. Their experience was featured in a New York Times article (October, 1998: Secrecy and Stigma no longer clouding adoption.) Ms. Ogden has published in Adoptive Families magazine and the Washington Post. Celebrate Adoption, Inc., an organization of triad members co-founded by Ms. Ogden, published her An Educator’s Guide to Adoption, a booklet that adoptive parents may give to their children’s teachers. The Guide, now in its fifth printing, was featured USA Today and the subject of a segment of the Rosie O’Donnell show in November, 2000. Ms. Ogden worked closely with clients of Adoptions Together in open relationships in making a video about open adoption (Adoption …Real Stories) that is used in outreach to broaden the understanding and acceptance of adoption as an option in high schools, clinics, hospitals, churches and other community organizations that work with youth and women in crisis pregnancies.

Patricia Dudley serves as Director of the Long Island Region for You Gotta Believe! The Older Child Adoption & Permanency Movement. In this position, she has successfully supervised and completed one federal grant and is currently supervising a second federal grant “The Long Island Opening Adoption’s Door To Teens Project”. Over the past five years, under Ms. Dudley’s leadership, the Long Island Region of You Gotta Believe has successfully placed over 80 of Long Island’s hardest to place teenagers into permanent adoptive families. Under her supervision, staff educates potential prospective parents from the community about the importance of continuing to maintain teens’ past relationships with former foster families, birth families, and neighborhood connections. Ms. Dudley has over 20 years experience in the field of child welfare. She is also an experienced adoptive parent having adopted two older children of a different race from the New York foster care system.

Susan Soon-Keum Cox is Vice President of Policy and External Affairs for Holt International Children’s Services in Eugene, OR. She has worked with local, national and international media for more than 25 years. In 1988, Ms. Cox was appointed by the Ministry of Health and Welfare in Korea to be responsible for media regarding adoption. She has managed media for a number of high profile situations, including the Dying Room stories from China in 1993. Ms. Cox was a member of the White House Vital Voices delegation to Montevideo as a media trainer for women in developing democracies. She also has been a guest media trainer for Women’s Campaign International’s for the Fels School of Government at the University of PA. Ms. Cox has appeared on numerous national television programs and featured in news articles. She has appeared on the NBC “Today Show,” “CNN News, CNBC News, and National Public Radio and Television, and has been featured in articles in the Washington Post, New York Times, Business Week, and Family Circle.

Workshop 1.4: Questions and Discussion:

Marilyn Panichi: In order to have some organization for our discussions, I thought we could first talk about the assessment of adoptive parents first. [Bullet point 1: What key factors should assessments address regarding ongoing connections?]. As each of the three panelists spoke, I jotted down what I thought were the important points each was making.

In terms of infant placement...

Susan Ogden talked about embracing the birth family and having compassion for them
And that the agency then supports that relationship [between birthfamily, and adoptive family and child]

In terms of teenage placement...

Pat Dudley talked about involving birthfamily members and teens in the training of adoptive families.

In terms of international adoption...

Susan Soon-Keum Cox really talked about being prepared and what we can do to enhance that. Adoptive families need to be prepared for open adoption, even if it doesn't start out that way at the initial placement

Question 1: from an unidentified member of the audience: "When I saw the word "assessment" in the discussion questions, I was actually thinking about the assessment that the adoptive parent needs to make in regard to the birthfamily--how to structure ongoing relationships with the birthparents when you are considering what the birthparents bring to the situation. Afterall, when it comes to assessing, you have to assess, not only adoptive parents, but also what the birthparents bring to considering openness."

Susan Ogden:

Do you mean whether birthparents want openness or not--or whether they are capable of it?
- Parents tell us often initially, that they don't want openness--but we always leave that door open for them.
- Some parents are struggling with mental illness. Some are struggling with substance abuse. Many are struggling with lots of different challenges.
- If they want an open adoption and they are struggling with these things, then the agency is very much involved in keeping that relationship going and in facilitating that relationship.
- We're MORE involved when--when people are more challenged.

In our 18 year history, we've had a lot of success in these relationships even when there are significant challenges.
- For example, we have a mom who has fetal alcohol syndrome. She has placed two children through our agency.
- Every year she has a picnic with her two children and their families.
- And she takes a bus to the agency every couple of months and writes a letter to her children.
- And the [adoptive] families are very compassionate towards her and send photos.
- So, from an objective standpoint, yes, she "looks" a little scary--because she is mentally compromised.
- But there, what the families are really embracing is that their children are really becoming more compassionate towards people with differences. And so they're seeing their children's spiritual capacity enlarged by that relationship.
- And a couple of years ago the families told us that they can handle the meeting on their own. That we didn't have to come.
- So, we typically do set it up now because she (the birthmother) doesn't have a phone, so that everyone knows where and when it's going to be, but they--the families--are managing this.
- Their maturity and their compassion is really managing this.

Patricia Dudley:

We work with older children. Most of the children who come to us have come to us because of deep loss--the termination of parental rights.
In working with the birthfamilies of these children, a lot of these families didn't understand that termination of parental rights meant, termination of parental rights only.
- They thought this meant that they had to stop loving, they had to stop caring, they had to stop being in contact with their children.
- That is typically something that a social worker at a country agency has told them.
Anecdotally, we placed a sibling group of four teenagers back with a birthfather who had done a surrender only because the county had threatened to bring charges against him.
- The children had been with him and his wife--they were young, they were from a different country, they had different ideas of corporal punishment, his wife was a substance abuser. There were four children including a set of twins.
- Dad had left. Mom's boyfriend had abused the girls. They went into care.
- Dad had gone went and gotten his children back, but being a single dad and being very young, he used corporal punishment on them. He left marks on one of them. And the county walked in and took them and threatened to bring charges against him. He signed his rights away.
- Within three months dad's brother and brother's wife were killed in a car accident, and so this dad ended up raising his brother's children. He went to parenting classes to learn what he needed to do and he raised his brother's children.
- Again, another eight years later, his own kids are around sixteen and seventeen and had been in care all those years. His own children had been split up and were in two different residential treatment centers. The girls had been sexually abused; the boys had been sexually abused.
- The oldest of his children found him through the internet.
- The father was, by then, a productive member of society; he owned his own business, he had raised a family of children.
- And he thought his own "babies" had been adopted and had been living happy, healthy lives. But they weren't
- And we were able to go into court and get that surrender overturned.
Anecdotally again, we just recently--for the first time in the history of New York--were able to place a 12 year old girl back with her birthfather who was able to adopt her as his own child.
- At least in the history of our agency, we have never been able to have a single man adopt a single girl, but actually we did this in having a birthdad adopt his own child.
- And this story happened because the child went into care. The father knew nothing about the child.
- All the child knew about her father was that her mother had said a man named "John Doe" was her dad. And so the child kept talking about "my dad 'John'."
- She was adopted [by strangers] at eight, but the adoption failed and she was returned back to the system. The child then went before a judge for whom our agency had actually done one of our training sessions, and this judge ordered the caseworker to actually find out who this "John" guy was.
- The previous caseworkers claimed that they could never find "dad" because they had no last name.
- So now, the new caseworker said to the child, do you know what this John guy's last name is? And the child was able to say right away..."yes, John Doe was my father."
- They went through the phone book and found a John Doe who admitted to having relations with the mother; did a DNA test, found out he was the dad, and placed her in the home, and she was actually just adopted two weeks ago by her own dad.
So sometimes birthparents don't even know that they have rights. They don't know that they CAN be in contact.
They literally live in this assumption that they lost everything.
You know we do have parents who were substance abusers when they were teenagers or young adults. But now they are in their thirties or forties, having productive lives, having their own families.....and their kids are still in foster care.
We have failed them. The system has failed those kids.
We are now able to reconnect them. They are able to have brothers and sisters and parents again. And to be able to be back in contact with these brothers and sisters and parents. And sometimes we are even able to place them back in their families.

Question 2: from an unidentified director of New York agency placing infants for domestic adoption: "As Pat was talking I realized that, in a way, you are at an advantage because you are building on existing relationships--you are reviving them or strengthening them--there is at least, a relationship there. Our big problem really is engaging birthparents to be involved in an open adoption. I wish that we had to do an assessment on birthparents to see which ones are capable! We just--we don't need to do that because our major issue is encouraging them, involving them, and helping them understand the value to their children of staying involved. And I just wondered if anybody has real practical tips--are there any things that you do or say or build into your practice to encourage birthparents? One thing that we try to do is to set up a post placement visit within three months--my feeling is that if we can do it early, then at least we can build on that. If you wait more than three months, it becomes scarier and scarier for these folks to reconnect. But I just wonder if you have any practical ideas..."

Susan Ogden:

We see a real movement in birthparents wanting more open adoptions.
- My hunch really is that many of them are connecting on the internet and learning there what is available.
- That is now a new support community for parents that are thinking about adoption.
- And so they're seeing more of what is available in terms of open adoption.
- I would say that 9 out of 10 birthmothers coming to our agency are asking for some kind of openness.
- So we don't have to encourage them so much because they are already asking for a level of openness.
The vast majority of birthparents/adoptive parents are meeting shortly after placement.
Most of the [birth]mothers that we get are calling us from the hospital--they've already given birth--and they are saying that they want to make an adoption plan and that they want to see an agency.
- So at that very moment we say...we have lots of families that we can show you--what are you looking for, what are you thinking about, what are you wanting in terms of an open relationship?
- Those are the [adoptive] families then, that we are bringing to the hospital in order to show them [the birthmothers], to think about.
- Several weeks later as we continue to work with them [the birthmothers] we ask them to continue to think about what level of openness they want--that's where we begin--What level of openness do you want?

Unidentified director who had asked Question 2:

We do too. Maybe in New York City we work with such a diverse population of birth parents--a lot of birthparents are newly arrived immigrants to New York City--that this is different. A lot of our birthparents don't have a good support system, don't have access to the internet, don't have the kind of knowledge about adoption that some of our birthparents that have been raised here perhaps do.

All of our adoptive parents are prepped on open adoption. You know, we almost beat them up with it! By the time they have a baby, they very much want this.

Our problem is on the other side.

Our adoptive parents are eager. They understand the value, and then they really aren't able to have an open adoption because our birthparents really--for their own particular reasons--aren't able to enter into that kind of relationship.

Susan Soon-Keum Cox:

I think this is something that can happen internationally too.
- One solution is to provide training to the social workers who have traditionally been so protective of birthmothers--and rightfully so--but who have not encouraged them to think about having a longterm, or any kind of a relationship.
- In most programs that I'm familiar with they are now encouraging birthmothers to at least anonymously write a letter. I think that begins to help them think about, at least dimly, a relationship with their child.
- But then social workers can begin to give examples of adoptees who have been able to reconnect with birthfamily and talk about it in a way that isn't so fearful.
I predict that in the next decade or so, as the secrecy in adoption in other parts of the world, diminishes in the same way that it has been slow to happen in the US--but it is happening--that there will be more birthfamilies coming forward, seeking information, and wanting to know about their children.
- Therefore, it is SO incredibly important that information be preserved. Both in the sending country, but also in the records of the US agency.
- Because that's the only way that you can really have any hope of bringing folks together.
- And I have to say that the internet has been a huge resource for this as well.

Question 3: from Ellen Singer, a therapist and educator with The Center for Adoption Support and Education in Maryland and Virginia: "I want to say first that these are really good problems--in terms of my practice. I say good problems, because I still see birthparents that don't get preparation and don't know that openness is an option for them. It is always heartbreaking for me.

What is also heartbreaking is when I see adoptive parents that have not gotten preparation and who are "freaked out" and so upset when birthparents contact them--maybe because it was a private adoption or through an agency--and want contact, but the adoptive parents are so unprepared for that because they thought they weren't ever going to have to deal with that.

But my question has to do with what I see in my practice--and that is, that while preparation for the adoptive parents and birthparents is crucial, it is also crucial for the extended family members. I have situations where it is the grandparents of the birthparent who are going to be remaining in contact. And they have had no preparation from the agencies or from other people so that when we talk about factors that undermine the success, that lack of education, that lack of preparation, around boundaries, around relationships--on both sides--is problematic.

I just had one situation where the family was out of contact for several years because there was so much conflict that had ensued. Fortunately the adoptive parents had contacted us and we were able to mediate and facilitate those relationships and get things back on track.

So I just want to say that I'm assuming that you see this as well. There is so much lack of education, so much lack of support. In the extended family members of adoptive family members and friends and in the community, openness is still so foreign to them, that they get the message of--"What are you doing?! This is crazy! Why would you do THAT?!"

I guess I have a lot to say, but if I have to put it in the form of a question, I guess I'd say, what practices do you have to help adoptive families in open adoptions and birthparents in open adoptions, not feel so alone in the context of their families and communities?"

Marilyn Panichi

One of the things that we have done in our Federal grant, is that we have developed a videotape that is available to anybody. It is a 15 minute video of three adoptive families that have open adoptions. Their children are teens and they talk about why it's really important.
- One mom talks about a point that one of you here made, and that is, that the children can hear directly from their family, what the truth is so that they don't ever have to think that she [the adoptive mom] may have misrepresented issues.
- In this case, the birthmom has ongoing contact with the adoptive daughter--she came to the daughter's high school graduation just recently.
- Another family has ongoing contact with the grandmother. They see her all the time and the video shows that relationship.
- And the third family, which was actually a foster family adoption, had taken the young man to visit his mom in prison for six years. She's now out of prison and she comes to the family home for all holidays. And they all talk about the fact that they have just expanded their family. They are now all one much bigger family.
- So it really shows life--people who are living this.
- And there is also one family of children who exited the foster care system and they have no contact with their own siblings.
It's a Family Connections project. We use it in training court personnel, social workers, adoptive families, the youth themselves.
It's a very powerful tape.
And you...have a film about open adoption yourself?

Ellen Singer, a therapist and educator with The Center for Adoption Support and Education in Maryland and Virginia:

Yes, we do. We have a film in which we have two birthmothers talk about their open adoptions and their relationships.

Susan Ogden:

But you know, Ellen, I think that one of the challenges is that many times the birthgrandparents aren't involved at all.
- Sometimes the biological parents keep it [their adoption plan] from their family.
- They don't want their family to know.
- They don't want their family to weigh in on it.
- Should [the birthparents' extended family] call us and demand to know, confidentiality demands that we can't even say that this person was even a client.
- So, if they're involved from the beginning, yes.
- Anecdotally, recently a birthgrandmother came to a placement and was a part of the placement.
  - Her daughter-- the birthmother--and the birthfather, did not want to be a part of the placement.
  - They were both teens and I think they were just feeling very raw from the experience, but the birth grandmother asked to be a part of placement, and the adoptive family was delighted.
  - And so, all of those updates will be shared with her [the birth grandmother] and she will be in on the visits. Even though she is not in the post adoption agreement, it has already been established that she will be a part of the visits.
  - It's really case-by-case in terms of what people are willing and want to do.
I know that when I took my daughter to Florida a few years ago in order for her to see her birthmother--my daughter was 10. Her birthgrandparents did not want to see her. They had seen her earlier, at a couple of different junctures, and they just did not want to participate.
My interpretation was that it was just too painful for them. They had lost so many years with her that seeing her for just a weekend was not going to be helpful. That's my interpretation. Maybe they were just feeling too sad about not watching her grow up.

Patricia Dudley:

I think one of the most horrific cases that I had to work on happened when I was working with another agency. We were working with children from New York City. I had a young man who was being raised by his grandmother and she refused to adopt her grandson.
- She had had her grandson since infancy and she refused to adopt him.
- She could in no way fathom why she should have to adopt her grandson.
- He was referred to us from a NYCity caseworker and they wanted us to find an adoptive family for him.
- At that point I had just become a grandmother and I knew that I was going to be raising my daughters' children. I could see it from both sides. On the one hand I couldn't understand why I as a grandmother I would have had to adopt my own grandchildren if my daughter's children had been ordered out of her home--and the other part of it--how I would have felt if my grandchildren had been pulled from me.
- The only thing I could do for this young man was to definitely find a family that would accept grandmother's involvement. And I did.
- But what I couldn't understand was why this caseworker somehow and someway couldn't facilitate that this child could change his code [coat?? This word is not clear from the tape???]. He was only 9, but he was with grandma.
- And it was hard--it was one of the hardest things I've had to do.
- Knowing that I was going to be raising my grandchildren, how was I taking a grandchild from a woman who was an older African American woman who did not and could not understand why she had to legally adopt her grandson.
- And she cried and wailed when they pulled him.
- And he cried and wailed when they pulled him. It was horrible.
- The only thing I could do was make sure that grandma stayed grandma.

Question 4: from an unidentified member of the audience: "My question is about international adoption, but the question would also apply to domestic adoption. When do you begin to present the idea of openness to the adoptee and how do you manage expectations?"

Susan Soon-Keum Cox:

Well, if they're already adopted and it's obviously probably a closed adoption, one of the things that we encourage is that adoptive families continue with writing letters, sending little school pictures, keeping in touch, and sending these things to the agency overseas.
- This is so that if a birthmother ever comes forward, there is the possibility [for the birthmom] to know that we [the adoptive family] would like to have contact--there's the information about her child.
- I think another thing that it does for the adoptee is that it demonstrates the tangible connections that the parents have.
- Anecdotally, when I went back to Korea for the first time and I saw my files, even though I had seen my records before in Oregon, it's very different from seeing them overseas in your birthcountry.
  - And to have them opened up and to see that, over the years, my mother had been sending letters and little pictures--I had no idea she had been doing that.
  - That was incredibly important to me that [my adoptive mother] had taken the time to do that.
I certainly think that it's important--as early as children can understand--to talk about birthfamily. There are some wonderful resources in terms of books for children from the time they are very small up through the developmental process.
I think they should always know that it [birth parent contact] is a possibility. How do you prepare them for it? I don't specifically know that you can do that...without knowing that it's happening right now or could happen.

Question 5: from an unidentified member of the audience: "My question is about children who are a little bit older and have been placed through the foster care system, where their parents might have some scary behavior during contact. I've recently had a couple of cases like that with my families where they've had phone calls where the parents were inappropriate and a little scary with the kids. Maybe things will be better later as they get used to things, but I wonder if there's a resource that I could use to put some "bumpers" on it to protect the child during telephone contact."

Susan Ogden:

As children have been getting older in our agency--at any point we can go back to mediation and try to put some structures on it.
Anecdotally, with one 15 year old adoptee, her birthfather visited her recently and she had a fantasy that her birthfather was going to be younger, hipper, and cooler than her adoptive parents.
- And it turned out that he wasn't-at least in her assessment at 15 (LOL--hardly any adult is young or hip or cool!).
- And he kept saying to her things like...you know, when you get older, I'd really like for you to come and live with me.
- He thought he was being very expansive in reaching out, but she found she was shrinking back.
- She was really having a lot of guilt about it and having difficulty processing it.
- It took a lot of therapy with her afterwards. She really needed help to her give up the fantasy.
  - We can live on fantasies for months and they are delightful and delicious and giving them up is really difficult.
  - It is important to get the adoptee to talk and to help her--to lend support and help her process. That is the role of a mediator.

Patricia Dudley:

Working with the older teens--most of our teens--know what their families are. They know what their families can do. And they do look to us for protection and for supervision.
- So we can definitely say--being in open communication with that teen--how did you feel about that, what would you like us to do, etc.
Technically we're into approval and we want an open relationship, but if that relationship is going to hurt or damage the teenager or the relationship with the adoptive family, then there are times when things need to be taken back.
Speaking with the therapist, getting the therapist's input.
Putting restraints in place. Maybe they can only meet where there's another adult who can say, for example--"that's inappropriate" or "it's time to cut this conversation--and you can call back later after we've had a conversation."
Again, our teens are still children. They need protection.
And you know, we do sometimes have to be the adults in that area.
- We may need to say, "you know this is not working right now."
- We need more counseling maybe. We need more therapy maybe. On the parent's part. On the teen's part.
- We have to facilitate.
- Sometimes, we can't let this go on any longer. There are times when we just have to be the adult and say, "This just isn't going to work right now."

Susan Soon-Keum Cox:

In international adoption, in a reunion, it's important to make sure that you have someone that can help with this process.
- Anecdotally, for example, my conversations with my birth family have all been through the filter of someone else because we don't speak the same language. And it's complicated.
- I would love to be able to have a real conversation where it's just us in the room. But since my Korean is not good and their English is not good, I don't know that that will really happen.
- It's been so critical to have someone who I trust who can really give the information,to interpret my thoughts to them, and theirs to me.
- And if you can have constancy, if it can be the same person over time, that's really helpful.

Question 6: from Darlene Denton: If we are talking about open adoptions, is this legally binding? Are you doing this before the birthparents sign their termination of parental rights?

Susan Ogden:

In Maryland, the post adoption agreement which is legally binding, is attached to the consent.
- It's filed in court.
- But it might be several months later after parental rights are terminated that a birthparent might ask for contact--and that could still be contracted. There's lots of different options.
- If they go into it not wanting contact, we can still leave that door open in case they change their minds.

Darlene Denton:

Are there other states that have these provisions?

Susan Ogden:

Yes, I believe that there are other states that have this. Yes.

Unidentified member of the audience:

I know that Annette Appell from the University of Nevada at Las Vegas is speaking at the conference as well. This is an area of expertise of hers. I know that there are a number of states--they differ--but a number of states that have enforceable contracts--nobody's going to come and get the kid. But the court will intervene. Yes, there are several states, although I don't know what they are. I think it's growing, yes.[ Fleasbiting's notes from Annette Appell's session about legally enforceable post adoption contracts]

Susan Ogden:

In my own work I have found that there is still a reluctance particularly in foster care to consider openness.
I think the message that we've gotten from everyone on the panel is that we need to start with the assumption that openness is a good thing, and only exclude when its in the best interests of the child--rather than the opposite assumption, which has always guided us--which is that it's not a good thing except in these exceptional cases--these exceptions. We need to reverse that paradigm I think.
One of the things that we didn't touch on, that I think is a little scary, is what happens in private adoptions when there's nobody to mediate, when there's nobody to explain, when there's nobody to pick up the pieces later, when there's nobody...when there's just nobody.
- So that is just one of the frightening things that came into my mind as we were talking about how to manage these relationships and do what's best for the kids. For private adoption, for these kids, there just is no such option.
Finally, I wanted to ask this question, although there's no time left to discuss it. I'll ask it anyway just so we can think about it.... :

What is responsibility do the agencies have in an international adoption placement, to help sending countries understand the importance of--not openness necessarily or in terms of relationship--but in terms of gathering those stories and those things that Susan Soon-Keum Cox talked about. In terms of keeping that information. In terms of storing or archiving letters that come from whatever country is the receiving country so that archive is maintained?

Workshop 1.4, Part I: Ensuring Ongoing Relationships--Practice That Opens the Door to Connections

2007-12-06T11:00:00.000-08:00

Ethics and Accountability Conference
Sponsored by Ethica and Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute
October 15-16, 2007

Bullet points for discussion during Workshop 1.4:

What key factors should assessments address regarding ongoing connections?
What are characteristics of successful open adoptions? What factors undermine the success of open adoptions?
How can families of origin be best educated on their importance to the children and the roles they can continue to play in their children’s lives?

Panelists:

Marilyn Panichi is the Executive Director of Adoptions Unlimited, Inc. She has more than 35 years of adoption and child welfare experience in administration, supervision and casework. Prior to establishing Adoptions Unlimited, Ms. Panichi was the Executive Director of the Adoption Information Center of Illinois under the auspices of the Child Care Association of Illinois. She began her career with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services as a Child Welfare Worker and Adoption Coordinator. Ms. Panichi earned her Master of Social Work and Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Illinois. She is a member of the National Association of Social Workers and the Academy of Certified Social Workers. Ms Panichi is co-founder of the Adoption Exchange Association where she currently serves as board member and treasurer.

Susan Ogden is the Director of Domestic Adoption at Adoptions Together. She has worked in education and nonprofit program management for 25 years. When she adopted her daughter Sasha in 1992, Ms. Ogden became an advocate for better understanding of open adoption. Her daughter enjoys an open relationship with her birth mother, birth sister and birth father. Their experience was featured in a New York Times article (October, 1998: Secrecy and Stigma no longer clouding adoption.) Ms. Ogden has published in Adoptive Families magazine and the Washington Post. Celebrate Adoption, Inc., an organization of triad members co-founded by Ms. Ogden, published her An Educator’s Guide to Adoption, a booklet that adoptive parents may give to their children’s teachers. The Guide, now in its fifth printing, was featured USA Today and the subject of a segment of the Rosie O’Donnell show in November, 2000. Ms. Ogden worked closely with clients of Adoptions Together in open relationships in making a video about open adoption (Adoption …Real Stories) that is used in outreach to broaden the understanding and acceptance of adoption as an option in high schools, clinics, hospitals, churches and other community organizations that work with youth and women in crisis pregnancies.

Patricia Dudley serves as Director of the Long Island Region for You Gotta Believe! The Older Child Adoption & Permanency Movement. In this position, she has successfully supervised and completed one federal grant and is currently supervising a second federal grant “The Long Island Opening Adoption’s Door To Teens Project”. Over the past five years, under Ms. Dudley’s leadership, the Long Island Region of You Gotta Believe has successfully placed over 80 of Long Island’s hardest to place teenagers into permanent adoptive families. Under her supervision, staff educates potential prospective parents from the community about the importance of continuing to maintain teens’ past relationships with former foster families, birth families, and neighborhood connections. Ms. Dudley has over 20 years experience in the field of child welfare. She is also an experienced adoptive parent having adopted two older children of a different race from the New York foster care system.

Susan Soon-Keum Cox is Vice President of Policy and External Affairs for Holt International Children’s Services in Eugene, OR. She has worked with local, national and international media for more than 25 years. In 1988, Ms. Cox was appointed by the Ministry of Health and Welfare in Korea to be responsible for media regarding adoption. She has managed media for a number of high profile situations, including the Dying Room stories from China in 1993. Ms. Cox was a member of the White House Vital Voices delegation to Montevideo as a media trainer for women in developing democracies. She also has been a guest media trainer for Women’s Campaign International’s for the Fels School of Government at the University of PA. Ms. Cox has appeared on numerous national television programs and featured in news articles. She has appeared on the NBC “Today Show,” “CNN News, CNBC News, and National Public Radio and Television, and has been featured in articles in the Washington Post, New York Times, Business Week, and Family Circle.

Workshop 1.4:

Marilyn Panichi: Each of our panelists will first address each of the three bullet points for discussion for this session.

Susan Ogden: I will be speaking about infant adoptions as Director of Domestic Adoptions at Adoptions Together, but I am also an AP in an open adoption

Bullet point 1: What key factors should assessments address regarding ongoing connections?
- We have assessment and educational materials for PAP’s
  - Most prospective adoptive parents, many of whom are moving from infertility into adoption, come to us with the idea of parenting exclusivity
  - One of the first things we do is help PAP's understand the idea of sharing within adoption--helping them move from the idea of parenting exclusivity to open adoption
  - The idea of sharing an adoptive child with another person is very frightening and very alien
  - That’s certainly how I felt as an AP—very frightened and alienated with the idea of sharing MY child
    - We didn’t have a post contact (open adoption) agreement, but we had had a lot of contact before my daughter was born.
    - When my child was 2 yo., we decided to take my daughter to see her birth family in Florida. I remember beforehand thinking that maybe blood is thicker than water and that my daughter would see her birthfamily and completely reject me.
    - But what anyone who has had a two year old since birth knows, is that a two year old is very attached. My daughter was very attached to me.
    - Our open adoption really did confirm the power of that everyday nurturing.
    - By the end of the visit I was very conscious of the fact that she wasn’t reaching out very much to her birthmother;
    - Things are, of course, different now that my daughter is 15, and of course, she reaches out much more to her birthfamily
  - During the assessment process we ask the adoptive family: Do you think you could represent your child’s birthfamily in a positive light even if some of the information is problematic and challenging?
  - Assessment period is designed to be educational and to help the adoptive family grow towards accepting the birthfamily—that flexibility of embracing them, respecting them…
  - We are supporting families in their growth towards the embracing of the birthfamily
  - After [PAP's pass through the assessment period and are]accepted into the adoption program, we help them continue to grow towards this acceptance
  - Many families come to us thinking they could not have an open adoption but by the time they adopt, they are extremely interested and open to having an open adoption; as they fall in love with the child, they want to do the best thing for the child—their compassion and openness towards keeping the child in contact with the birthfamily grows
Bullet point 2: What are characteristics of successful open adoptions? What factors undermine the success of open adoptions?
- What we noticed right away is that we need adoptive parents who are mature, secure people who can respect boundaries. But, of course, there is a wide continuum within normal adult development…
- One of the first and most important things that adoptive families need to understand is that their position in regard to the child’s love is not going to be enhanced diminishing the birthfamily. It DOES take a mature person—serious adult maturation—to understand that and realize how important that is.
  - It is similar to the dynamics in a divorce situation.
  - If you are bad-mouthing the birthfamily, you are diminishing your child. You are NOT elevating yourself.
  - If you are bad-mouthing the birthfamily, you are diminishing your child and the important connections he has to all those who love him.
  - This is a difficult concept for people unless they really are moving along in the process of adult maturation
  - But is something that we’re really conscious of in our agency and that we work very hard to help people understand
- Sometimes PAP’s say: Well we don’t want to have an open adoption unless we can be sure that the birthfamily will never disappoint our child—that they’ll always keep those appointments, that they’ll send those gifts regularly, that everything will always be good.
  - And so I ask the PAP’s—“So how many of you have never been disappointed by a relative?” They need to think this through.
  - We can’t control what happens to our children
  - With my daughter’s birthfamily, sometimes they send things, sometimes they don’t
  - My job as a parent is not to harangue them to send something every year. My job as a parent is just to help my daughter talk about her disappointment.
  - Life is difficult. My job as a parent is to make sure that my daughter has the resources to manage the inevitable disappointments in life. My job is not to teach her that she can control how people behave, or that she control how people treat her, or that she can control what the quality of those relationships are all the time.
  - Maturation is an important quality in terms of people’s compassion for each other.
- In Maryland, open adoption agreements are enforceable, so when parents sign an open adoption agreement they agree to send updates, and increasingly, often agree—increasingly-- to have at least one visit a year. This is something that in Maryland we can ensure birthparents that is enforceable.
  - Adoptive parents and birthparents are willingly signing agreements that they will meet each other.
  - We always ask--we recommend that these meetings are initially facilitated by the agency. The staff is there at the meeting between birthparent and adoptive parent—whether it be at a park or a restaurant or wherever. We do this because we want everyone to feel comfortable in these initial meetings.
    - Sometimes parents/families go off on their own and they do it exactly like they want to do it and it works out and it’s fine.
    - The question is whether there is an undermining that can sometimes occur.
    - When people go off on their own, and are really making it up as they go, on their own, they can sometimes really run into trouble...and then they call the agency and say: ...gee...this or that is happening.
    - I can think of one anecdotal case in which a birthmother had cell phone contact with the adoptive father and the adoptive father came to feel really guilty about having adopted the child. He felt sorry for the birthmother because her situation was compromised. Because of that guilt, remorse, and all those upset feelings, the birthmother got into asking that they bring the baby over really, whenever she felt like it. For example, she would call up and say..."It’s Christmas and so-and-so’s never seen the baby—could you bring the baby?" And the adoptive parents were complying with those requests because they felt like they had to--but they weren’t comfortable with it. So the AP’s asked us as the agency to get re-involved. So, at that point, we sat down with everyone and did a mediated session and came up with an agreement that really felt right for everybody. It was a little more structured and involved a little more agency facilitation.
Bullet point 3: How can families of origin be best educated on their importance to the children and the roles they can continue to play in their children’s lives?
- One of the biggest challenges in working with prospective birthparents is that there is no role for them in our society.
  - The only images expectant parents know of birthparents are the horrendous images of birthparents on Lifetime television programs
    - That’s the only image for birthparents that most of us know
    - That’s the only role for themselves that they see
  - Our job is therefore to empower them. This involves, if they decide to go forward with adoption:
    - To help them select the parents that they want to raise their child
    - To help them select the degree of openness that they want in their adoption
  - And in doing these things, we offer them a tremendous amount of compassion, acknowledgement, and respect.
  - Because they are in such a difficult place in American society and in their relationships in general
  - Our job is to offer them compassion, acknowledgement, and respect
  - Many say that they do not want to see their children, but we increasingly try to leave that door open for them should they change their minds.
    - They can call the agency and arrange to meet their child and their child’s family, really at any point.
  - At this point there are more AP’s who want that open relationship than there are birthparents who want an open relationship
    - 9 out of 10 of our AP’s are prepared for an open adoption—to begin with or at any time in the future
    - Many actually long for that, especially as their child grows
    - AP’s want their child to have that connection and have that information
    - They especially want a photo of the biological parent, and sometimes that is a very difficult thing for us to get for them and their child
  - There is still so much shame associated with having given a child up for adoption that many birthparents just don’t want to give out information; they don’t want to share that part of themselves
  - They don’t want to be public about it

Patricia Dudley Our work in “You Gotta Believe” is a little different than work with infants. The children with whom we work are mostly teens.

Bullet point 1: What key factors should assessments address regarding ongoing connections?
- We are educating families who have stepped forward to provide care for these children
  - These teens know their birthparents and birthfamilies. They have connections with grandma, or aunts, or even former foster parents.
    - They have ongoing connections to families that have either been taking care of them or else have been visiting them. Sometimes these are even families to whom they have ‘AWOLed’ or run away to.
  - We have many adoptive families who are willing that the children have contact with birthfamilies or relatives; but we also have families who want no part of a teenager who has a connection with someone else from their past life
    - It takes a lot of educating and a lot of talking to bring these adoptive families up to speed
- We have a lot of panels in our classes
  - We have panels that include adoptive families who talk about the experiences with their teenagers and those teenagers' birthfamilies and other people in their community.
  - We bring the teens in and we let the teens talk about how important it is to them to maintain these connections to people from their past—with their birthfamilies, with their foster families, with their friends, even with their friend’s parents.
  - We also try to educate important persons in the teens' pasts. We have gone to the counties and actually asked to be able to bring birthfamilies into our classes
    - Not only to educate these birthfamily members as to how important these connections are to kids
    - But also to ask them to be resources for these kids
    - I have placed kids back in their birthfamilies with grandparents who had originally been told, when the child was taken into care at 6 or 7, that they couldn’t care for the child because the mother would be around the grandparents; grandma had subsequently been a resource in the child’s life for 10 years, during which time she had not seen/heard from her daughter for five of those years. We were subsequently able to place the child with his grandmother.
    - I was able to place teens back with a cousin who under the county had gotten guardianship of three children; one was in a residential treatment center and when the child got out, I advocated for adoption of the children by the cousin; the cousin needed more resources than guardianship could provide; she needed the added support that comes with adoption—mediators, someone who would come in to help, Medicaid that would come with adoption—which was more than with guardianship.
    - I’m an adoptive mom. My daughter came to me when she was 9. I had two children, 9 and 7, when my daughter came to us. When my children were younger, every year we would go to the Bronx zoo, but we stopped going when we adopted my daughter because I had this fear that we would meet up with someone from her past life at the zoo. I had that fear too. It was a serious consideration. My daughter had a sister who did not go into care but who was raised with their grandmother. My daughter named every stuffed animal, every doll was named after her sister. She wanted to know where her sister was. Because of particular circumstances, I didn’t know whether birthmom was going to be around by the time my daughter was 18 so that she could contact her birthmother. When my daughter was 14, she started to ask where her sister was and why we couldn’t find her sister and at the same time, birthmom letter saying that she wanted contact with daughter. They put us in contact. One of the worst things that I did was agree to contact with supervision. I talked to birthmom and I agreed that she could write letters to my daughter and send them to my office. I would screen them and if they were appropriate, I would give them to my daughter. She would write letters back, if I thought they were appropriate, I would pass them on. However, after awhile the letters stopped coming to my office. My daughter was smart and had the letters sent to her friend’s house. My daughter was very angry that I did not trust her—that I wouldn’t make a bond with her strong enough to trust her to decide where her loyalties lay. My daughter did establish full contact with her birthmom after she was 18. In fact, when her birthmother died, she died in my daughter’s arms.
      - My daughter later made the comment that her sister was NOT better off for having stayed with the birthfamily—her grandmother was an alcoholic—and having been passed from family member to family member.
      - My daughter observed all the things that her sister never had, the fact that she never finished high school, and the fact that there was no ongoing family to be a family to her sister when her sister had children of her own later.
      - I asked my daughter if she had at least gotten a chance to ask her birthmother all the questions that she had wanted to ask her before she died. The answer was no—she was too sick. I was taking care of her and I didn’t want to hurt her by asking too many questions.
Bullet point 2: What are characteristics of successful open adoptions? What factors undermine the success of open adoptions?
- A successful open adoption is when your child knows where their loyalties are. When they can meet with their birthfamilies and get all their questions answered and literally not have to fantasize about what life would have been like had they been with their birthfamily. For worse or better, they need to know.
- I think a successful adoption for me is when I can place a child or a teenager back with a family member or someone that they knew back in the community. I’ve even placed teens with their cafeteria worker—if they were the only ones that the kids knew consistently for three or four years. I placed one child with the cook from a residential treatment center. The teen was aging out of care at 18 and all the teen wanted was to have a family and to go to college. The worker took her home. I think that’s where my successful placements are—placing the teens in their community, with people they know, with people they feel understand them, and where they feel safe.
Bullet point 3: How can families of origin be best educated on their importance to the children and the roles they can continue to play in their children’s lives?
- The answer is bringing them in, talking to them, letting them know what their roles are, letting them know that just being there—being able to answer questions—and sometimes it just having them know that sometimes all they need to do is simply have one visit with the teen in order to help the teen move forward into a placement.
  - Anecdotally, we had a teen coming out of a residential treatment center who was 16 and who was entering our adoption program hoping to be adopted. The teen was in contact with her sister. That sister was in contact with the biological mom. The sister told biological mom that the teen was hoping to be adopted. The mom said, if she gets adopted, I will kill myself. Mom’s reaction got back to the 16 year old and she tried to drop out of the adoption program. We attempted to reach the mother, but couldn’t. A god-sister, however, showed up interested in being an influence in the girl’s life. Eventually this person wrote a letter saying to the girl—you need to move on and get a family of your own. That was all it took—someone from her community, her previous life, saying it was time to move on. The girl moved forward in the adoption program again. Eventually we were finally able to contact the mother whom it turned out, was very scared. She was afraid she’d permanently lose her daughter. She thought as long as the child stayed in foster care, she’d come back to her eventually. But the mother realized what was best for the child. She was able to help her daughter move through the adoption process and into her adoptive family.
- Adoption is a celebration for the adoptive families. But not the teen. For the teen it is the end of a hope that things would finally come together with their birthfamily.
  - Adoption is a difficult time, not a celebration for teenagers. It is a loss. It is the end of their past lives.
  - For a teenager, we try to show them that it doesn’t have to be an end, but that they can blend their families together—their lives together—so that they can be a whole, happy, productive person with the support of all their families.

Susan Soon-Keum Cox: My perspective is from that of international adoption.

Bullet point 1: What key factors should assessments address regarding ongoing connections?
- I am an international adoptee who was adopted in 1956
  - There have been about 200,000 adopted internationally to the US and I was about number 167. So I really was very much at the beginning of that process. Sometimes I think I am the oldest living international adoptee on the planet!
- I can tell you that adoption is generational. I am so aware of that because I had the pleasure of becoming a grandmother this past year.
  - When you adopt a child, either domestically or internationally, it isn’t just that child that you are bringing into your family. You are integrating them and the generations that follow into your family. You are altering the family tree for generations to come.
  - For those who adopt internationally and interracially, it isn’t just that you are adding a child of another race to your family—that you happen to have a child of another race in your family. You ARE an interracial family.
- In 1956, when I came to my parents, the idea that I would ever know my Korean family was not a thought in anybody’s mind
- The idea at that time, in 1956, was to “Americanize” children as quickly as possible. The worry was how will children “fit in.” In the concern to do this, we certainly did become acclimated to whatever community and neighborhood we were in—recognizing, of course, that a lot of children were also adopted to Europe as well.
  - The sadness of this approach is that the child lost connection to the birth culture and heritage.
- So we really have learned some things along the way. In three generations of adoption, we are making much better progress in recognizing that the ideas of race, culture, and ethnicity are not just “nice” ideas, but are central, and are, in fact, essential to a successful international adoption
  - However, there are STILL families that look at international adoption as the way to avoid all this—to avoid openness—as a way to ever having to address the issue of birthfamilies. But the fact is, none of us international adoptees were the result of an immaculate conception. We came to our adoptive families through a *birthfamily.* And our connection to those birthfamilies are for ALWAYS.
  - Any adoptive parent that has the fantasy that adopting from another country will somehow eliminate the possibility of birthfamily, first of all is terribly misguided. You can’t pretend that you child simply came from whatever airline. They really started in another place. And that history, that beginning, is so essential to who they will become. So adoptive families should embrace the child’s birthfamily and heritage in the same way as if the child had come from a domestic adoption
- So if you are working IA families, certainly help them to understand that first of all, every child has a birthfamily. And that is a good thing. And this fact is something that they need to incorporate into the way that they think about their adoption
- One of the things that I think is so critical in preparing adoptive parents for adoption is this—we always talk about adoptive children, we talk about babies, about children…. but the fact of the matter is that we adoptees grow up. Some of us even are getting old… So those practices that we have at the very beginning must be able to translate to the long term.
  - Whatever you do at placement obviously needs to be effective for right then, at placement. But those things also have to be effective and practical for when that child grows up, for when that child, that person, becomes a parent, for when that person becomes a grandparent. Those decisions need to be crafted not just for the moment, but also for the future.
- One thing about IA and transracial adoption is that the adoptee will always grow up—in his/her childhood—with the question of who he/she looks like. Who is his/her real mom and dad? Who does she look like?
- There is some open adoption with international adoption, but not much. That is a trend that is just starting to emerge. So there is very little.
- But what there is in IA is the “re-opening” of adoption. Adoptees who never expected to be able to reconnect with their birthfamilies are finding their birthfamilies. Family members are re-finding each other.
  - And I think it’s the natural human response to want to know: Where did I come from? Who do I look like...
  - Certainly that was my experience growing up
- When you talk about what are some of things that can happen in the beginning, in the assessment—it is true you can’t transfer domestic open adoption—or the domestic open adoption process here in the US—internationally. The process is too different—it is separated by geography, by language, by culture.
  - When you talk about adoption from the birthfamily’s situation—the triad here in the US—you are all, most of the time, going to be speaking the same language. You may have very strong differences in terms of social and economic status, geography in terms of say Pennsylvania versus Oregon, and all of those things…. But you will at least know the same words that you are speaking.
  - With international adoption, language is a huge barrier. And it isn’t just the spoken word, but it is also what each party knows about and considers to be—adoption.
  - So, for those of you who work in international adoption, when you are preparing for adoption—it is true that the sensitivity required for a birthfamily in India is totally different from the sensitivity required for a birthfamily from Washington, DC.—in terms even of their ability to understand the concept of adoption.
    - At the same time there are things that you can do to make that much more real for the adoptee in the future.
    - For example, you may not be able to put in identifying information. They may not even give you identifying information. Many times, even now, the information that birthmothers present about themselves is not accurate. It’s not their real name. It’s not their real situation. And that is because they need to be able to move back into their lives. But what you can do is to ensure that what is written in the margins—is there. It’s really important. You may not be able to have a picture, but if you take a picture of the mother, even if it is unidentified, that is such a treasure for the adoptee to have.
    - To be able to say to the adoptee—to be able to write a word picture—because you may not be able to take a photo of the birthmother—she may not be comfortable with that. But if you describe her. Describe what it was like the day that she came in and talked to you. As you worked with her and helped her make an adoption plan for her child, what was her voice like? What did she like to do? What was she wearing? What were her thoughts? Paint a word picture.
    - For many of us adoptees, that is the ONLY picture of our birthmother that we will ever have.
    - Please take the time to do that. It is not too much trouble. It is really important.
- In the 1950’s and 1960’s while I was growing up, there were really no opportunities for my adoptive parents to know about Korean culture and heritage in the way we know now. There were not parent groups, there were not books, there were not resources. But today we are much better able to help families to parent their children transracially.
  - People ask me now if there were opportunities growing up in little Brownsville, Oregon, to get to spend time with other Koreans—or even other Asians? The answer is no. But my parents were wise enough to know that Korea was important—the way that they talked about it.
  - Even though I didn’t grow up eating Kimchi or knowing about fan dancing or many things that represent the richness of my birthculture, what I did know was that my parents believed that Korea was a most amazing place—because that’s where I was from and I was their daughter.
  - It’s that to-my-bones-feeling-about-a-place that adoptive parents truly need to embrace
Bullet point 2: What are characteristics of successful open adoptions? What factors undermine the success of open adoptions?
- When you talk about the success of open adoption, I think you must have realistic expectations. That’s not easy.
- For many of us adoptees, many of us have these fantasies about who our birthfamilies are.
- When you are adopted you have all these questions, for which there are no answers.
  - My fantasy was, of course, that my mother was a princess. I learned at some point that I had been born in Inchon. And I frankly got tired of people asking who my real parents were—who was my real mom, who was my real father--and so at some point I started telling people that my birthfather was Douglas MacArthur. He was at Inchon at about the right time!
  - When I celebrated my 40th birthday, I decided to take back my Korean name. And I embarked on a search for my birthfamily—never, never expecting in my wildest imaginings that I would be successful. For some reason, I was particularly fixated on who my birthmother was. I had a deep longing to know who was this woman had carried me and given birth to me. And I was about 5 years old when I was adopted, so I somehow I should have had some memories of my mother. But somehow they were all gone. I had no memories of—what did she look like—and somehow that was so important to me.
  - What I didn’t think about was siblings. So, to my surprise, I was found, or should I say, we found each other. My birthmother had actually died. In fact, she had died the year that I went to Korea for the first time. So, for whatever reason, we were never going to see each other again on this planet.
  - But I found out that I was my mother’s secret.
- And this is one of the things about adoption that is so important to understand. Secrets are so painful and so difficult. And they should be unnecessary.
  - And so my mother died saying to my youngest brother—you have a sister and she went to America. And this wasn’t in the context of anything he knew. And so, when I found them, I was a big surprise, as you can imagine.
- For some reason I had never really considered that I might have siblings, but after all these years of wondering who do I look like, to finally come face to face with people who look like me…what a surreal experience that was.
  - And yet we don’t share language, we don’t share religion, we don’t share history.
  - In my adoptive family I am the oldest of five siblings. I have more in connection with them in terms of history than in terms of biology. The feelings that I have for my two Korean brothers are so different from the feelings I have for the siblings with whom I grew up with.
  - I have always believed that adoption was a difficult choice for my mother. I guess I wanted to believe that. Whether I had memory of that, I don’t know. But finding my Korean siblings confirmed this for me. My brothers think I’m terrific, but it’s because I left. Had I stayed in Korea, I would have been the illegitimate, half-Korean sister that they would have been deeply ashamed of. I don’t blame them or question that. It simply is the way it is.
Bullet point 3: How can families of origin be best educated on their importance to the children and the roles they can continue to play in their children’s lives?
- There is much about adoption that is simply bittersweet.
  - The fact that a birthfamily must look at adoption for their child to have a family.
  - The fact that for an adoptive family, the only way to have a child, is to give up the dream of having a child born to them.
  - And for the adoptee, particularly for the international adoptees, it’s the disconnection from the culture and heritage that they were born to.
- But the sweet is...
  - For a birthmother, like my birthmother—who tried to keep me—she kept me with her for five years, she dyed my hair black, she did a lot to try to keep me with her—for her, the sweetness of adoption is that I could have a family that would love and cherish me every day in a way that she simply could not.
  - For adoptive parents, the sweetness is the opportunity to love and cherish a child not born to them, and that sometimes, doesn’t even look like them.
  - And for the adoptee, the sweetness is, of course, the opportunity to have a family.
- The choice is not distinct. It is not that you give up one for the other. I believe that you should and you can have both. They’re very different things.
- One of the things that undermine the success of an open adoption is that it is fearful. How will you feel about the family that gave birth to you compared to the family that you lived with everyday?
  - As a parent, I can certainly understand the worry that that presents. It is similar to when you go through a divorce and the former spouse remarries. What is the loyalty of the children towards you? How do you really know that your place within their life is really secure?
  - But children are much wiser than grown-ups many times. Grown-ups need to trust the children. They should know that children are able to make those distinctions. And it isn’t necessarily so difficult for children to chose. You simply are who you are and if parents can have the courage to understand and accept that—it’s really very important.
- As we move forward with international adoption particularly, we had better be prepared for open adoption. We’d better be prepared for ongoing relationships between birth and adoptive families. And that really, is a good thing. It is not something to be fearful of. It’s a challenge, yes. It’s difficult, yes. But is it worth it? For the best interests of children, I think, yes, it is worth it.

The preceding are detailed notes. They do not constitute the exact words of the speakers, but a--hopefully accurate--summary of the ideas of these presentations and questions. If any of the panelists or attendees take issue with any of these summaries, please let me know so that I can correct them.

Please see "Workshop 1.4, Part II: Ensuring Ongoing Relationships--Practice That Opens the Door to Connections--Questions & Discussion" for notes from the remainder of Workshop 1.4

Desiree

Several Recent US DOS Announcements Concerning Guatemala & also US Hague Implementation

2007-11-27T15:00:00.000-08:00

The US Department of State recently released three intercountry news announcements of interest to US adoptive families and adoption providers.

First:

Guatemala Update

November 8, 2007

The Department of State has received inquiries about the status of anticipated adoption reforms in Guatemala, and the outlook for adoption cases which are currently pending. Whether the Guatemalan government elects to implement the Hague Convention on December 31st or later in the spring of 2008, pending cases would not be affected if, as expected, the final legislation includes a transition provision that allows pending cases to be processed to conclusion under current law. We continue to advise American Citizens not to initiate new adoptions until the Government of Guatemala has completed its implementation of the Hague Convention.

Adoption reform legislation remains under discussion in Guatemala’s Congress. We continue to advocate for a law that complies with the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption and that includes transition provisions for cases already filed under the current system of law.

Passage of a new adoption law is only the first step. The next, urgent priority will be for Guatemalan officials to establish a Hague compliant system. Designing and implementing the necessary structural reforms will take time.

The Guatemalan Government has said it will assume its obligations as a Hague Convention member on December 31, 2007, a decision we support, because Guatemala’s children -- indeed all parties to an international adoption -- deserve the protections afforded by the Convention as soon as possible. When the Hague Convention goes into force for the U.S. in the spring of 2008, both the U.S. and Guatemala must have Hague-compliant adoption procedures in order for new adoption cases to be filed. Thus in the interest of long-term adoptions from Guatemala, responsible, prompt reform of the current law and procedures is critically important. The U.S. is committed to provide assistance and support to the Guatemalan authorities for this task.

Guatemala Update, US Department of State, 8 November 2007

Next:

Notice: Department of State Plans to Deposit the Instrument of Ratification in December 2007

The United States and the Hague Intercountry Adoption Convention

We are pleased to announce that the United States has nearly completed all the domestic requirements necessary for the deposit of its instrument of ratification for the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (The Hague Adoption Convention) in December 2007.

As the US Central Authority under the convention and the lead Federal agency for its implementation, the Department of State eagerly anticipates the moment when we can join the more than 70 other countries who believe in strong international norms for protecting the best interests of children, as well as the interests of birth parents and adoptive parents in the intercountry adoption process.

According to the terms of the Convention, it will go into force on the first day of the month following the expiration of three months after the deposit of the instrument of ratification.

The Convention strengthen protections for adopted children, birth parents and adoptive parents involved in intercountry adoptions. Its key principles include:

1) Ensuring that intercountry adoptions take place in the best interests of children; and
2) Preventing the abduction, exploitation, sale, or trafficking of children; and
3) Facilitating communication between Central Authorities in countries of origin and destination countries

The Hague process in the United States will require that adoption service providers show that they meet Hague standards in an accreditation process. Adoption service providers who do not meet the standards will not be permitted to provide adoption services in Hague member countries. Our Hague regulations also require transparent fees, home studies that are approved by an accredited adoption service provider and mandatory training for prospective adoptive parents.

The United States signed the treaty in 1994.

In 2000, Congress passed the Intercountry Adoption Act (IAA), the implementing legislation for the Convention. The Senate gave its advice and consent for ratification of the Convention on the condition that the United States was prepared to meet its obligations under the Convention as provided in IAA.

We are proud to say that we are very close to completion of those preparations.

For more information please see our website at travel.state.gov
Or contact the US Central Authority at AdoptionUSCA@state.gov.

Notice: Department of State Plans to Deposit the Instrument of Ratification in December 2007, US Department of State, November 2007

And finally:

U.S. on Track to Join the Hague Adoption Convention in December
November 19, 2007

A message from the U.S. Department of State

The U.S. Department of State, Office of Children’s Issues, is pleased to announce that the President signed the U.S. instrument of ratification of the Hague Adoption Convention on November 16. The legal requirements for ratification of the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (Hague Adoption Convention) have been completed, and we plan to join with our deposit the instrument of ratification on December 12, 2007! The Department will announce the official date the Convention will go into force for the United States—projected to be April 1, 2008—in the Federal Register. The Hague Adoption Convention protects children and their families against the risks of unregulated adoptions abroad and ensures that intercountry adoptions are made in the best interests of children. The Convention also serves to prevent the abduction of, sale of, or traffic in children.

Once the treaty is in force, the new processing requirements for Hague adoption cases will take effect for adoptions between the United States and more than 70 Convention members. The new process protects the rights of children, birth parents, and adoptive parents while promoting transparency, accountability, and ethical practices among adoption service providers.

U.S. on Track to Join the Hague Adoption Convention in December, US Department of State, 19 November 2007

Desiree

Workshop 1.3, Part I: Ensuring Ethical Relinquishing Practices

2007-11-19T22:45:00.000-08:00

Ethics and Accountability Conference
Sponsored by Ethica and Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute
October 15-16, 2007

Bullet points for discussion during this workshop:

What elements should be included in true options counseling?
What should the rights of relinquishing mothers and fathers be?
What is an appropriate time period during which relinquishing parents should be able to reverse their decisions to place their children for adoption?
How can informed consent to adoption be assured?
What services can be put into place to protect the rights of relinquishing parents?

Panelists:

Melissa Griebel is the Vice President of Ethica, Inc. The mother of two boys, both adopted through domestic, transracial adoptions, she enjoys open adoptions with both sons’ birth families. Melissa, who has served on the Foster Care Review Board for Pima County, Arizona and who moderates two forums addressing domestic adoption issues, has a strong interest in the ethics of domestic adoption, and a special interest in the issues that affect transracial adoptees and their families.

Frederick F. Greenman Jr. is the legal advisor and former Director to the American Adoption Congress and the Treasurer and a director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. Senior counsel to amici curiae in the historic case, Doe v. Sundquist, upholding the 1995 Tennessee Adoption Act, he also assisted counsel in the Does v. Oregon, upholding the ballot initiative and statute which granted adoptees from Oregon access to their original birth certificates. His interest in the subject stems from having surrendered a daughter for adoption at her birth and with whom he reunited 15 years ago.

Jini L. Roby, JD, MSW, MS an attorney and social worker, is an associate professor of social work at Brigham Young University, where she researches and teaches global issues of children at risk, including those who are adopted. She is a former adoption social worker, president of the Utah Adoption Council, founder and director of an agency to prevent and treat child abuse, and a guardian ad litem attorney for children in the public child welfare system. She has assisted several governments of sending countries to establish laws, regulations, and services to birth families contemplating adoption.

Susan Livingston Smith , Program & Project Director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, is a leading scholar in the field of post-adoption services. A licensed clinical social worker and Emerita Professor of Social Work at Illinois State University, she has published books and numerous articles in scholarly journals.

Fred Greenman: Speaking on Question 1: What elements should be included in true options counseling?

I am a birthfather
For the best information on this panel's topic. I recommend reading the article Adoption Consents: Legal Incentives for Best Practices by Elizabeth J. Samuels, Adoption Quarterly, Volume 10, Number 1, 7 March 2007

[Fleasbiting note--Adoption Quarterly charges $35 for a copy of the article. Another article on the same subject by the same author is available for free download at: "Time to Decide? The Laws Governing Mothers' Consents to the Adoption of Their Newborn Infants," by Elizabeth J. Samuels of the University of Baltimore School of Law Fleasbiting will also eventually be publishing notes from Conference Workshop 2.3 where Elizabeth Samuels was one of the panelists.]
A few remarks on the subject that Elizabeth Samuels covered so well:
- Those who counsel birthparents should understand and make sure their clients understand:
  - The emotional consequences of relinquishing a child can be huge. As a birthfather I had 30 years of insomnia as the result of relinquishing my daughter (and that is mild compared to what other birthparents have suffered)
  - Expectant parents considering a surrender become almost "infantile"--that is, they become submissive, out of control of their emotions, and un-adult like in the way that they make decisions.
    - I certainly was.
    - At the time I surrendered my daughter, I had served three and a half years in the military on active duty; I had gone to officers' candidate school: I was a first lieutenant; I was a second year law student. I was certainly an adult and had seen and done many things as an adult. Presumably I knew quite a bit.
    - And yet I behaved like an infant; I was submissive and not in control of my emotions. And that is typical
  - Anecdotally, Samuel's article tells about a Kansas legal case in which a woman behaved in a similarly "infantile" fashion
    - It was the Friday before Christmas, she had just given birth, and the hospital was closing; the social worker and everyone else was pressuring her for a quick decision to surrender and so she gave in.
    - She was in her late 20's, a college graduate, a licensed professional--and yet she gave into the pressure of the situation; she didn't have the strength to insist that she be allowed to wait and make the momentous decision in her own time frame
    - The next morning, having changed her mind and decided to keep her baby, she called the adoptive family--because she couldn't reach the agency--and the adoptive mother told her something on the order of...Sorry--we've bonded with the baby and we're keeping it--Merry Christmas!
    - The birthmother fought the case through the Kansas courts and ultimately it went to US Supreme Court which eventually denied cert.--that is, the US Supreme Court declined to hear case. That meant that the lower state opinion was left to stand
    - The lower Kansas state opinion had affirmed the adoption and had refused to allow the birthmother to reclaim her child
People in this situation are extremely vulnerable--no matter what their education, no matter what their background

Susan Livingston Smith: Question 2: What should the rights of relinquishing mothers and fathers be?

Safeguarding the Rights and Well-being of Birthparents in the Adoption Process."is a report I authored that was published by the Evan B. Donaldson Institute in November 2006. It delineated critical standards in regard to expectant parents who are considering placing their children for adoption
Expectant parents need to be fully informed of all their options and rights. They need to be aware of the resources available to them. They should be helped to formulate alternate plans--plans for parenting their child. They should be helped to understand their legal rights. Etc.
Absolutely most importantly of all, expectant parents need to be helped to understand the implications of all the above. This is sometimes harder than it seems.
- People in this situation are in shock; even the obvious long term implications of these decisions aren't necessarily clear to them. Even things that seem fairly straightforward need to be explained
- This is especially true when adoption is not something in the expectant parent's previous experience.
- Anecdotally, the importance and long term implications for something like, say, choosing an adoptive family isn't necessarily clear to an expectant parent in this situation.
  - A young college student became pregnant and, being in a state of denial throughout her whole pregnancy, told absolutely no one until she delivered.
  - In the hospital recovery room she called a social worker in order to give her baby up for adoption. While the mother was still under the influence of drugs from birth, the SW came to the hospital and told the young woman that she could choose the adoptive family or the family could be chosen for her. The young mother said, "Well, you choose them."
  - In shock and under the influence of drugs, hearing something for the first time, how could she understand the implications make an informed choice? It is hard to understand the implications of anything the first time you hear about it. It takes time to process information/think through all the implications of info you are given. It is hard to process information in this kind of crisis situation.
  - In this anecdotal story, for example, the idea of picking a family for your child is potentially very significant. This young woman needed to know that picking a family for her child could have been incredibly empowering to both the adoptee and the adoptive family--to know that the birthmother specifically chose them for each other is empowering to both.
- Explaining, understanding, and processing the significance, implications, and life-long consequences of these decisions is a process that can't be done quickly or in an encyclopedic way. It takes time. It's hard in the situation
Parents should make decisions free from coercion or pressure
- Again, it is not enough to know facts, but parents must accurately understand the implications of these facts.
- It is a truism that laws shape practice--but sometimes when people are uninformed of the law and its implications, that shaping is to the detriment. This is true of birthparent rights--if the implications of the laws are not understood.
  - If a law says that surrender CAN be taken on the fourth day after childbirth, it means that surrender can't be taken before the fourth day. But it does NOT mean that a parent must sign on the fourth day--or make a final decision on the fourth day, as if it were some kind of final once-and-for-all-you-have-to-make-a-decision-today deadline.
  - Oftentimes when a parent is told that there are four days til signing, they think that they HAVE to sign a relinquishment on the fourth day. And no one tells them any differently. They don't understand that they don't have to sign then--that they could take more time, decide when they're ready, and then sign/not sign on their own time schedule.
Parents should have the right to receive non-directive counseling and independent legal representation.
- It is a right, but not one that is provided for or a condition of a valid relinquishment--that is, almost nowhere is it a real REQUIREMENT.
- Therefore, very few birthparents get both non-directive counseling and independent representation. Yet in terms of ethical practice, all should be getting both.
  - Most states say that you have to inform the expectant parent as to their right to counseling or legal representation--but the law doesn't provide these services or the fees for them or require that those taking the relinquishment provide them
  - Louisiana is one of very few states that require both.
  - Some states may require one of the two.
Birthparents should have the right to change their mind at any time before consent is legally binding
- Many times expectant parents have a sense of obligation; They'd like to change their minds, but they feel they've maybe gone too far to change their mind
- The fact that the expectant parent can change her mind and has every right to do so, should be reiterated to everyone at every step of the adoption process
  - In situations where expectant parents meet PAP's, it needs to be reiterated to both parties that adoption is the plan right now, but that the expectant parents have every right to change their minds and might very well do so.
  - The counselor needs to constantly verbalize to the expectant parent that changing your mind is their prerogative
Post adoption contact agreements need to be enforced. Every state needs to have a process for enforcing post adoption contact agreements.
- Vast majority of birthparents from whom I received emails after publishing this report said something like... I made this adoption decision based on the fact that I was told I could see my child and be a part of his/her life forever. But now the adoptive family says no, I can't see the child.
- Making an agreement in order to get a relinquishment and then going back on that agreement after the relinquishment is given is completely unethical. We shouldn't be using contact provisions to get relinquishments and there ought to be a way to enforce contact agreements

Jini L Roby

In the international adoption context, the meaning of options counseling is very different
Any adoption agency "worth its salt" will build that into its international program options counseling--exploring options for the parents other than relinquishment and for the child, other than IA
- In cultures outside the Western world, kinship care options is the most important--absolutely essential--option that has to be explored. It is a given.
- Agencies must absolutely be culturally competent in the sending country in which they are working
- Providing the option for first parents to parent their child themselves (a part of options counseling) means that the agency must help the parent find the necessary resources to make this a viable option.
  - It is true that there are varying degrees of resources available overseas in the "sending countries."
  - However, I believe--and I have seen--that finding these resources is a matter of will. Most countries do have some resources and if an agency has the will to find these resources and connect the parents with them--the resources to be able to parent their own child--can be done in most cases.
  - People say, oh, without IA these children will absolutely die. I've seen that with the will and the resources that that doesn't happen. It is a scare tactic. But there has to be a strong will (from the agency) to make it happen.
  - Birthparents can be connected to resources--they are entitled to be connected with resources.
- As for independent legal representation, is easier said than done in many countries. Independent legal representation for the birthparent rarely happens in an IA context.
  - First, in many countries there isn't the tradition of legal representation for everyone.
  - Secondly, it doesn't happen because of the power differentials/disparity involved between first parents and adoption agencies.
  - And the agencies, feeling that their resources are already stretched, feel that they can't afford to provide independent legal counsel for the relinquishing parent.
- Another important legal aspect is making sure that birthparents in these countries understand what it means to relinquish a child.
- The cultural understanding is often very different as to what adoption/relinquishment means
  - Many cultures perceive that adoption is an incomprehensible lie--A lie created to say that the real parents are not parents. And they believe the truth is that behind the lie, the real parent remains the real parent.
  - In more cultures than not, the idea of the termination of parental rights is a totally foreign idea that has never been heard or practiced. Explaining what this means is therefore very important. Even with explanations, it is difficult for people to grasp in many cultural contexts. How can it be that you can say a parent is no longer a parent? How can such a thing be? And how can a non-parent be the parent now? This is a hard thing for us to understand as Westerners--how hard this idea is to grasp. Until I saw it myself, I didn't understand how hard it is for other cultures to grasp our idea of adoption.
- Unethical practices I've seen in other countries:
  - Dynamics where those who are counseling/recruiting birthparents in other countries actually try to pit the birthparents against each other instead of ensuring that both make the decision as a parent team--and I've seen this used--are very, very unethical.
  - Carrots dangled in front of parents to induce relinquishments of children are unethical. I've seen this take many forms. We will send you gifts; we will continue to help your family; we'll send you to college; we'll send you on trips to Disneyworld; we'll keep in touch with you; we'll provide openness.
    - Especially awful are the false inducements--false carrots dangled to obtain relinquishment. Most of these promises are never followed through on.
    - Expectant parents have the right not to be defrauded. In many sending countries because of economic disparity, the US and West is thought of as being paved with gold, so they have skewed ideas of us and life here.
    - Similarly, the idea that anything could be hard there in the West, for their children, is also hard to comprehend. It is an idea as far-fetched as the idea of the fiction of judges creating new parents.
- Birthparents should have the right to recognized as parents for a lifetime. Not just to be viewed as the biologic or genetic tools for getting the child onto the earth for the adoptive parents.
- Finally counselors must be sensitive and recognize the pain and loss that relinquishing parents deal with. I know that as a biological mom, even imagining being separated from my child like these women are causes extreme emotional distress. We have to afford relinquishing moms the same emotional humanity.
- Finally we should work to help birthparents live in world without shame; Where they can be accepted as having made the best decision at the time on behalf of their children

Fred Greenman

On contact enforcement....
- Very few states provide for enforcement of contact agreements. Where provision isn't made, contact agreements are usually not enforceable. They ought to be, but they aren't.
  - If not enforceable in a particular state, that should be made brutally clear to the relinquishing parents.
- Care should be taken to make sure contact agreements are done according to applicable laws. For example, many times the law says that agreements must be incorporated into adoption decrees. Anecdotally, where an agreement was not properly filed in court, birthparents are now in court fighting to have it enforced.
  - Especially important to get things right because the legal clout and money is often with AP's. It's hard/expensive for birthparents to get justice.
If birthparent rights were enforced by courts, much bad adoption practice would be eliminated.
- For example, if courts enforced the rights of birthparents to rescind relinquishments during a reasonable period of time after surrender, better practice--thorough non-coercive counseling and independent legal representation--would become standard practice as an insurance to avoid later birthparent change of mind.
- Because birthparent rights aren't taken seriously by courts, bad adoption practice is allowed to flourish.

Melissa Griebel Let's go to bullet point 3: What is an appropriate time period during which relinquishing parents should be able to reverse their decisions to place their children for adoption?

Susan Livingston Smith:

This is a controversial question. There are strong opinions both ways. If you work with adoptive parents, you tend to see it strongly one way. If you work with birthparents, then you tend to see the other side of the issue and feel strongly the other way.
One reality that shapes thinking is the availability of infant care while birthparents are struggling with this decision. This care is simply not always available everywhere in this country.
The waiting period between birth and the time of relinquishment:
- The European Convention on the Adoption of Childrensigned by 18 European countries says that relinquishment for adoption can't happen prior to 6 weeks after the birth of a child.
- Trying to be realistic, the Evan B. Donaldson Institute recommended that there ought to be a period of at least 7-10 days before a mother or father could sign a relinquishment document for a child. For 2-3 weeks following this signing of the relinquishment document there ought to be a revocation period in which a parent can change their mind without having to prove anything before a court as to why its in the best interest of the child.
- There are now only 6 states that require at least 3 days to pass after birth before a child can be relinquished.
- There are several states that allow relinquishment before the birth of a child, although there is a provision within these states that allow the decision to be rescinded.
- The longest period of time in the US between the time of birth and the time of allowable relinquishment is Louisiana which requires a minimum of 5 days.
- I asked an Obstetrics professor how long it took a woman's hormones to reach a normal level again after birth. He answered that he'd never read anything from a research point of view, but that he'd say it would take at least two weeks for the hormones released during the birth process to dissipate. The hormone flux is huge. It must take several days for a woman to be able to think more clearly without these hormones at play. Should a woman be allowed to relinquish during this time of flux? Is it fair to her and her child?
In terms of revocation periods...
- There are 17 states that have a revocation period from 3 to 30 days--most on the shorter side. Very little power or lobby. In NC, the revocation period was recently shortened from 30 days to 7 days. It is a battle to get the laws to give adequate time.
- Elizabeth Samuels wrote a wonderful article about the revocation period.

Melissa Griebel Do you know how many states allow fathers to sign before the birth or how much time they are given?

Susan Livingston Smith

Even ensuring that the birthparents understand that there is a revocation period, what that means, and how to revoke their consent is a problem currently.
I was involved in a case where a birthfather was able to get his child back because they (the agency) had not explained the revocation period to the father. The agency had placed the child before the revocation period was over and the father changed his mind within the period but the agency said--sorry, but we already placed the child. It took a judicial ruling to get the child back. But to understand how difficult even that case was and how hard it is for the average birthparent to undo a relinquishment, you should understand that this father and his family spent $200,000 in legal fees fighting to get the child back--and he had changed his mind within the legal revocation time. It is difficult to get a child back--the legal process is hard and costly. Not all birthparents can manage to do it; and not all have the resources to do so--in fact, very few do.

Melissa Griebel Let's go on to the next bullet point: How can informed consent to adoption be assured?

Susan Livingston Smith

I have spent time looking at ethical codes for social workers and thought about how it applies to obtaining consent from birthparents.
As for what consent means and how it is worked out practically...
- Even in terms of medical consent, I for one have even stopped reading medical consent forms because they scare me to death. Things that can go wrong are spelled out.
- But in adoption, we don't include in our thinking about informed consent/counseling/forms, the implications and long term consequences of the relinquishment decisions.
  - For example, the fact that relinquishing parents will experience long term grief.
  - Yet, similar situations require counseling and forms that spell out the implications and long term consequences.
    - What do we put surrogate parents through--the processes we require? We require counseling, etc. We ask, are you sure this is something you can do?
- With expectant parents and adoption, by contrast, it is usually once over and lightly. Often not out of maliciousness--we perhaps think the expectant parents know what they are doing?
- But we instead need to make sure that before someone signs a document, that they've had adequate time, they've had adequate information, they've had independent legal counsel, that they know whether the post adoption contact agreement is enforceable, that they know whether there are other people in their extended family that would like to raise this child (kinship adoption), that birthfathers have been asked if they want to raise the child
  - BTW, birthfathers should be offered every service that expectant mothers get-- expectant fathers should know that they have the right to all the same services as the expectant mothers
  - We give short shrift to the father. We often see him as an obstacle to get around. This is unethical.
In short, there should be a lot of quality counseling, services and decision making that goes into a informed consent decision.

Melissa Griebel

I've seen adoption websites that actually state that they find that fathers don't care as much about their children as mothers do.
There was a case about 7 years ago in Reader's Digest, etc. about a expectant father named Spenser. The agency sent him the relinquishment paperwork to sign and he refused and said he wanted the child. He was not allowed to have the child. He fought 3 years to get guardianship and to get his child back, but he never succeeded. The adopting parents were also never allowed to fully adopt the child, but received permanent guardianship. He never got the opportunity to have his child though he never wanted to sign the papers and he didn't. And no one knew quite what to do.

Susan Livingston Smith

In the case I talked about earlier, the birthmother who had already surrendered gave the paperwork to the birthfather--a college graduate in an exclusive relationship with the birthmother.
- There were specific instructions with the paperwork saying that the paperwork had to be witnessed and notarized, etc.--in order for the relinquishment to be valid. And the birthfather didn't do any of that--he simply signed it.
- And yet the court looked at none of that as a reason for the papers being invalid--they simply looked at intent--did he intend to relinquish his child?
- And his changing his mind came clearly within the revocation period, when he also should have been able to change his mind anyway.
- A licensed SW took short cuts and didn't do things properly.
- Much that is not in the best interest of expectant parents passes as meeting the letter of the law when it really doesn't.
- There's a lot that happens that is just plain sloppy. And that hurts real people.

Jini Roby

I'd just like to remind us that under the provisions of the constitution, parents have the right to parent their biological children but there is no right to adoption that is protected by the constitution or by any state for that matter.
- That should give us some perspective about what informed consent means.
- It means giving away a right that you have--that is constitutionally protected--and so how rigorous should the process be when a person is giving away that kind of a right?
- We often talk about informed consent, but we rarely talk about voluntary consent.
  - Consent should be both informed and voluntary.
  - Informed--meaning that you know what the legal ramifications are of giving that consent--and voluntary--meaning that you have OTHER options but that you choose this option.
  - Here again, in the international context, I see that consent is often not voluntary. In the international context it is often informed. But sometimes it is not even that.
    - Working in sending countries I have seen that people who come from the US and Europe are perceived as very intimidating.
    - It is easy to feel intimidated and grant their wishes.
    - These people also see that you are powerful and that your arms ache for a child...and so there is emotional intimidation as well.

Fred Greenman

Informed consent...
- I don't think you can have informed consent with the very vulnerable people we're talking about without independent counseling and independent legal counsel.
- This independent legal counsel is required in some places, but even where it is, the attorney is usually selected and paid for by the adoption agency or the AP's.
  - And remember that this adoption agency is a business that continues--they are involved in a series of adoptions.
  - There are problems having to do with repeated hiring.
  - The party who does the hiring quickly learns which legal counsel will "be troublemakers" and which will "help speed the process along as expected."
  - It is the attorneys who are helpful to moving the process along who will be hired. And everybody knows that--the people giving the advice and counseling do too.
  - The only way to get proper informed consent for those who can't afford their own counsel in these cases will be if you have independent counsel, publicly funded--maybe something like legal aid or the public defender's office.

Melissa GriebelThis may work into the last question which we have to cover: What services can be put into place to protect the rights of relinquishing parents?

Fred Greenman

Well the independent legal fees coverage would certainly be my first suggestion, but also the one that Susan Livingston Smith suggested, which was that, along with a reasonable rescission or revocation period, there have to be places in which to place a child during the revocation period.
- You cannot expect to place a child with the AP's during this period of time and then expect to yank him back.
- The nice thing about a capitalistic system like ours is that if the law is changed and something like this is mandated and money is provided, then the need will be filled. Foster parents will be found.
- Children were routinely placed in foster care in previous generations, for at least to six months, to be evaluated, and this could easily be reinstated.

Smith

As a social worker who believes in infant attachment, I wouldn't advocate placing a child in foster care for six months.
Research on infant development shows that it takes 6-8 months before an infant is attached to a primary caregiver.
However, a month of quality temporary care is not going to harm an infant. And I agree that having that required time before relinquish is allowed is something that needs to happen. But not for six months...
Another thing that interferes with the practice of informed consent is that many expectant parents do not contact an agency until very close to their due date.
- When I was doing research for this paper, one agency told me that 42% of their expectant parents who relinquished didn't contact them until the last 10 days before birth or else after birth.
- This quality work of informed consent takes time.
- Often there is the perceived need to rush when you have a client who has already given birth or is about to give birth.
- This reality constraint causes professionals to try to shorten the process--to get it done quickly. It would be better to slow it down.
- It would be better to not place the child until you're sure that the parent isn't going to revoke their consent--that they've had time to make a good decision.
- Our tendency to speed things up causes a lot of the problems that we then have to go back later and fix.

Jini Roby

We often think in terms of "birthparent rights" versus "best interest of children"--I think we have to stop thinking in terms of mutually exclusive categories like that.
We have to take a review or an overview of what adoption is meant to do.
- Adoption is meant to create adequate SUBSTITUTES for children who are not ABLE to stay with their families of origin.
- It behooves us to think as to how we can best protect the child's interest by protecting and preserving their families of origin.
When we talk about birthparent rights, we should not think of these as opposed to the rights of children to grow up in a loving family with happiness and understanding.
- Yet I see that dichotomy all too often out in the adoption practice world. I don't know how many times I have heard agencies out there say something like this, "Oh, I can't believe that a birthmother did it to us again! In other words, she changed her mind!"
We have to be reminded again and again as to what the purpose of adoption is.
The constitutionally protected right to parent one's child and the right to self-determination and most of all the belief that children really are best cared for in their families of origin if in fact those families can be supported to do so--if the ability and capacity is there.
A final word about dual representation....by one single adoption agency. I am increasingly having trouble with this concept. In the legal world, one law firm is NOT allowed to represent opposing parties.
- We don't want to think of adoption as an adversarial situation--the parties in adoption as being opposing parties, but you know what? They are. It is one of those hard truths that we have to face.
- The fact is that only one set of parents--or opposing set of parents--will have the right to raise the child.
- Our legal system grants exclusive or almost exclusive rights to one set of parents. Let's face this fact. It is an adversarial situation.
- And so what are we doing, doing options counseling for expectant parents AND doing adoptions out of the SAME agency--I think it's unethical. And I think that we think very much towards doing what Fred suggested--having separate entities do options counseling for birthparents and doing adoption services to place children.

Melissa Griebel

I want to put in my own comment on a topic that hasn't come up yet, and that is the payment of birthparent expenses.
- The payment of birthparent expenses is very problematic in the realm of coercion, emotional coercion, feeling of obligation, financial coercion.
- There should a separation of where the money comes from and the prospective adoptive parents. There is a lot of controversy on exactly how something like this is set up, but I think it's really important.
- From an ethical viewpoint, however, it's essential to take care of the needs of an expectant parent separate from the adoptive parents and the infrastructure for the adoptive parents.

Please see Workshop 1.3, Part II: Ensuring Ethical Relinquishing Practices--Question and Discussion for notes from the remainder of Workshop 1.3

Workshop 1.3, Part II: Ensuring Ethical Relinquishing Practices--Questions

2007-11-19T18:00:00.000-08:00

Ethics and Accountability Conference
Sponsored by Ethica and Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute
October 15-16, 2007

Bullet points for discussion during this workshop:

What elements should be included in true options counseling?
What should the rights of relinquishing mothers and fathers be?
What is an appropriate time period during which relinquishing parents should be able to reverse their decisions to place their children for adoption?
How can informed consent to adoption be assured?
What services can be put into place to protect the rights of relinquishing parents?

Panelists:

Melissa Griebel is the Vice President of Ethica, Inc. The mother of two boys, both adopted through domestic, transracial adoptions, she enjoys open adoptions with both sons’ birth families. Melissa, who has served on the Foster Care Review Board for Pima County, Arizona and who moderates two forums addressing domestic adoption issues, has a strong interest in the ethics of domestic adoption, and a special interest in the issues that affect transracial adoptees and their families.

Frederick F. Greenman Jr. is the legal advisor to and former Director of the American Adoption Congress and the Treasurer and a director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. Senior counsel to amici curiae in the historic case, Doe v. Sundquist, upholding the 1995 Tennessee Adoption Act, he also assisted counsel in the Does v. Oregon, upholding the ballot initiative and statute which granted adoptees from Oregon access to their original birth certificates. His interest in the subject stems from having surrendered a daughter for adoption at her birth and with whom he reunited 15 years ago.

Jini L. Roby, JD, MSW, MS an attorney and social worker, is an associate professor of social work at Brigham Young University, where she researches and teaches global issues of children at risk, including those who are adopted. She is a former adoption social worker, president of the Utah Adoption Council, founder and director of an agency to prevent and treat child abuse, and a guardian ad litem attorney for children in the public child welfare system. She has assisted several governments of sending countries to establish laws, regulations, and services to birth families contemplating adoption.

Susan Livingston Smith , Program & Project Director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, is a leading scholar in the field of post-adoption services. A licensed clinical social worker and Emerita Professor of Social Work at Illinois State University, she has published books and numerous articles in scholarly journals.

Part I of this workshop is available at Workshop 1.3 Part I: Ensuring Ethical Relinquishing Practices

Questions:

Question 1: from Shelley Damen with Choice Moms: What do we do to protect the rights of minors placing children for adoption, particularly in the US, but also internationally?

Susan Livingston Smith

When I did research for this paper (see , I read a lot of state laws.
I found that a lot of states have specific enforced requirements in dealing with minors even when they don't have requirements for persons of majority age.
Having counseling and legal representation are important.
In terms of coercion, social workers often talk about the parents telling the minors that they have to surrender the child for adoption. Social workers must tell parents that this will not be a legal adoption if you force your child to put her baby up for adoption. It has to be her decision. She is the parent.
In practice we have to do things to empower minors to make their own decisions--and not to be coerced or forced to make a certain decision, whether it be by boyfriends, parents, or anyone else.

Fred Greenman

In practice, of course, it depends on the provisions in the state law.
As a matter of principle, it really doesn't make much difference--whatever their age, expectant parents in this situation will be very vulnerable. I don't think an arbitrary dividing line of 18 or 21 or whatever makes much difference in terms of vulnerability.

Jini Roby

Internationally it is so culture-driven.
There are countries where a person has to be an adult under their national laws to relinquish and there are other countries where--and I'd say that this is most countries--where there is no law.
Parental input is present and very important.

Question 2: From Bernadette Wright of Origins USA: I wanted to comment on what Susan said about the time that a parent should have after birth to surrender. Susan said that it should be no more than a month because of issues of bonding with the temporary caregiver. What about the bonding that takes place between the mother and baby during the nine months of pregnancy? Doesn't it make sense to take the time to ensure that the baby and mother are not unnecessarily separated because coercion or because of the mother not yet being in the frame of mind to make a good decision

Susan Livingston Smith

I didn't say that it should be no more than a month. I said that state laws should at least give a month. It would be great if they would give longer.
I said that it would not harm an infant to be in temporary care for a month or two so that parents could make that decision.
There is often a push from birthparents who don't want their child to be in foster care. Many times when you try to give birthparents more time, the birthparents say, well I don't want my child to be in foster care.
There is also a push from adoptive parents to get the child into their home as soon as possible.
All I'm saying is that it doesn't harm the child to be in good temporary care. It wouldn't harm the child to stay in temporary care for up to six months.
In fact there are some countries that make provision for a place where new mothers can go with their new babies and get help and support while they think about making that decision after the baby is born.

Jini Roby

Yes, how many adoption agencies make provision for the birthmother to go back to where she was staying before she gave birth?
In other words, is the adoption decision sometimes driven by a lack of a place for the mother to stay and get help and support while she makes her decision after the birth?

Melissa Griebel

I think its important to realize that even where there's a law that says that decisions can be made after a few days or a month, those laws do not mean that the decision HAS to be made then. It's important to know that that decision can be made later.
Again, that's where good options counseling would make sure that expectant parents know that that decision can be made after four days or whatever, but that it doesn't HAVE to be made then. The decision could be made at a month or two months or whenever. It doesn't have to be made on the first day that they are allowed to make the decision.

Question 3: from Carol Lawson from Adoption Options in Colorado: We are an agency that counsels expectant mothers. Only 80% of those expectant mothers who made a prior adoption plan follow through with that plan. That is, 20% change their mind. We do offer a cradle plan for birthmothers who come to us late in pregnancy whereby they can place their children in temporary care until they make up their minds what they want to do. Colorado is a tight state in regard to the legal process. One concern that I have is adoption facilitators that are not legal in Colorado but that come into Colorado and fly the birthmothers out to other states. I think that is a real dilemma for birthmothers nationally--the movement across states--because things are not as tight in other states as they are in Colorado.

Melissa Griebel

We agree. That is a real problem because you end up with a birthmother in a state where she does not live.
And there she is by herself with an agency.
And if she decides not to place there she is. Where is she going? Does she Does she have a car seat? Does she have money to buy diapers? How will she get home? And those are very big issues.

Question 4: from Jennifer Hemsley an adoptive parent who writes the Great Wall of China Nightmare blog I'm finding this meeting--and I don't know if I'm the only one feeling this--but it's very anti-adoptive parent. I find this very disturbing because I love my children very much. I just heard from one of the panelists here that adoptive parents are non-parents and I find that very offensive. I am mostly knowledgeable about Chinese and Guatemalan adoption. Despite all that I'm finding that I agree 100% with many of the things you guys are saying--time for the birthmother for decision making, etc. However, I'm wondering if we are living on the same planet because I am actually living in Guatemala right now and I see these things as absolutely impossible to implement--absolutely impossible. I met the birthmother of my second child, and as wonderful as that experience has been, I can say that there is no way, absolutely no way that she could take care of this child. And so I'm finding all of this very one-sided and very anti-adoptive parent.

Susan Livingston Smith: What part do you think is impossible to implement in a foreign country?

Jennifer Hemsley

Guatemala is too poor. Guatemala is too poor to implement what you're talking about.
You are talking about implementing legal representation to the birthmothers. That's absolutely impossible. That's absolutely impossible to do right now. That's absolutely impossible.
You know, you're talking about language barriers. We're talking about Mayan women. I believe that there are eight different languages in Guatemala alone. I mean these are women who come from very remote villages and who come into Guatemala City.
What you're talking about is in an ideal world.
But what do you do with these children?

Melissa Griebel: I don't think that's true.

Jennifer Hemsley

I do think it's true. I live in Guatemala right now.
I mean I totally agree with what you guys are saying but it's not realistic when you are talking about countries that are still developing.

Roby

I agree with you that the resources are very scarce in lots of developing countries.
But I will again underscore that it is possible if...if there is a will...if there is a will....
If that will springs up from that country or whether it comes from outside, the will can be created.
And it doesn't necessarily have to be money that provides that.
There is no reason that you have to have trained attorneys with ten years of experience doing this counseling. You can train people who are indigenous in various cultures to do this. It does take some money, but it's not impossible.
I have seen several sending countries where there is a strong will to do it--it is possible.
It's a matter of being very creative and having a strong determination to create these kinds of services. I do agree with you that it is a difficult battle in many countries.

Fred Greenman

Two things....You have to remember what the topic of this session is--and that is Ensuring Ethical Relinquishments--and so yes, we tend to focus on the part of the ethical process to do with birthparents. That partly explains it.
Let me also say that in my own family we have adopted two children. And my closest friend has adopted a child. And these were cases in which adoption was necessary.
Certainly I believe that adoption is a fine thing where it is necessary--when the birthparent can't take care of the child.
The problem comes in when the birthparent is pressured to relinquish because there is such a strong demand for adoptable infants.
And where there is such a large amount of money involved that it creates enormous problems for expectant parents in the decision making and relinquishment process.

Jennifer Hemsley

I totally agree and I guess I see the problem as being with adoption agencies.
I myself lost $35,000 with an unethical agency.
The problem is not so much the adoptive parents per se, but with the agencies in middle who are profiteering. Not with the adoptive parents.
I guess I could do with less negativity on the adoptive parents. I love my children as I'm sure you do.

Melissa Griebel

I was going to add that I'm an adoptive parent too. There is not a negativity on this panel towards adoptive parents. And I love my children too, just like you do.
And I think part of the key to changing things is that the mindset changes from the level of the adoptive parent as well.
We all have our place in changing the way these issues are handled...in all of our adoptions. Not just domestic adoptions but also international adoptions as well.
And when those mindsets change from where we (as adoptive parents) are, from the agency standpoint, from where everybody stands within this process, then the mindset will change.
And we all--even adoptive parents--have a part in that.

Question 5: from Ann Carmen, a birthparent and an attorney: I'd like to endorse Fred's comments that you can't make an informed consent, and I might add, a voluntary consent--because if it's not informed, then it's not voluntary--without independent counsel. I think the idea of having legal aid type representation for everybody—including birthparents of all ages, beyond just minors.—is a good one. I'd also like to suggest that relinquishments be taken by judges as opposed to agencies--because judges can really probe whether the consent is informed and voluntary. I certainly think you need a period in which you are not allowed to relinquish and then a period in which you can revoke that relinquishment. And I am confused that the Evan B. Donaldson Institute is recommending a period of 3-7 days when you have told us, Susan, that you have talked to OB's who say that hormones are crazy for at least 2 weeks after birth. I'd also like to note that in every comment you made when you spoke, you talked about expectant parents or birthparents---uh, we're PARENTS. And counseling should not just be before you give birth but also after you give birth, because there is a huge difference between being confronted with an unwanted pregnancy and being confronted with a live baby. I relinquished at age 40--a law professor, married to a 37 year old law professor, under very unusual circumstances. And we didn't intend to be birthparents so we didn't get any counseling. In fact we didn't get any counseling until our kid was almost 3 months old because our life went crazy. And there was still coercion, and in many ways, uninformed consent.

And then I want to ask what you--all of you here on the panel--are doing to fight for decent relinquishment times and decent revocation periods.

We in Maryland have a 30 day revocation period because I and Linda Clausen-- who is here behind me and who is the head of our local CUB (Concerned United Birthparents)--have fought to get something like 6 to 8 times to keep that 30 day period--we have put enormous pressure on the system to keep it at 30. I would also like to mention that 10 years ago the AAC (American Adoption Congress) supported us, but in recent years when we have gone to the AAC for support, they've said, "That's not a part of our mission." I think this stance should be reconsidered.

Fred Greenman

[who is an advisor to and a Director of the American Adoption Congress]
I want the specifics on that.

Ann Carmen

You were not the person who said it.
I also want to say that extended family should be a part of pre-relinquishment counseling. Extended family on both sides.
And people should be told about resources like CUB (Concerned United Birthparents). CUB is the largest birthparent organization in the country.
And I don't mean just CUB, but people should have an opportunity to speak to people who have relinquished and who have mixed feelings about it.

Question 6: from Marley Grenier of Bastard Nation and of the blog The Daily Bastardette: There are other forms of coercion that I have real problems with--such as becoming very friendly--the PAP's and the expectant parents becoming friendly with each other. The PAP's presence in the delivery room. To me this is very coercive.

There are other things, like the Choose Life License Plate Campaign where the funds are collected for special license plates in various states. These funds go to programs for women who promise to relinquish their children. I suppose they can change their minds and they're not going to come after them. But to me this is a real coercion. If you tell an agency, “I'm going to relinquish the child,” and once the child is born, you change your mind-- but you've already gotten services from them.

Melissa Griebel: Like promises of a college education.

Question 7: from Gary Gamer who is the parent of a 9 year old son from Korea and the CEO of Holt International Children's Services: I am really happy that we are talking about relinquishment within the context of international adoption. It is, by far, the lightning rod--the most abused arena and the one that puts an almost indelible blemish on our work. I'll be talking about the financial improprieties in a workshop related to international adoption in the morning. But right now there are two points I'd like to make with the conversation here.

The first is so vitally important. The person who actually takes the relinquishment, the person who is leading that process...should not be a judge, should not be a businessman....should not be a facilitator...should not be somebody who's paid on the basis of whether that child is placed or not. It should be a social worker. No question about it. A social worker who is working within the best interest of that child. And it is possible find and train social workers almost anywhere.

For example, Guatemala is a country that has a strong tradition of social work. It's just a matter of identifying the social workers and inserting them into the process--into the proper slots to make that work.

The second point I'd like to make is that when it comes to support of birthparents—support for them to keep their children--this isn't rocket science. We're talking about counseling; we're talking about medical intervention. It could very well be that that parent's going to agree to give up that child.

Different countries for example have different stigmas attached to a child being born out of wedlock. It varies. The crisis center that we run in the Phillipines, for example--of the mothers that come there--90% of mothers with children born out of wedlock will keep their children. In Korea, it's different. It's probably less than half because of the stigma within that culture.

You can take your $35,000 and put it in Romania, let alone Uganda, and keep 200 children with their birthfamilies--if it's within their best interests. If it's the safest thing for them. That technology is there. If there is an agency that is charging those kinds of fees, they can take those fees and within a couple of year period of time do all those things that we're talking about. It's very doable.

Question/Comment 8: from Cheryl Miller from Remember International, a grassroots program for AP's to help orphanages in Haiti: I understand your frustration. We had someone in place in Haiti and he took the money and ran. The second person who we thought was wonderful--he turned out to be a nightmare. In Guatemala, they have social workers; in Haiti they have social workers. It's just a matter of plugging people into the right places. The agencies who work in these places--as consumers and there's a word for you--but as consumers we need to say to the agencies, “I'm not going to adopt through you if you don't put money back into the community.” Who says that with a loud voice? Adoptive parents don't say that with a loud voice.

Corrupt facilitators want us to believe that there is nothing that we can do. That there can't be any counseling available there. That's what they want.

Question/Comment 9: from Stan Phillip an adoption attorney in Virginia: I represent both adoptive parents and birth parents. I never do it at the same time. And if I'm representing one-- the law doesn't require it—but—I make sure the other side has an attorney too. I make sure that it is a quality attorney--somebody who is knowledgeable. Our jobs as attorneys is to make sure that our clients are making their own decisions in an educated manner--that they are getting services and that those services include going through the options very thoroughly. We want those birthparents to know what they're doing and to make their own decisions. We try to get our birthparents in as early as possible in the process so that they can have multiple counseling sessions and come to an educated decision. And I know that many of my colleagues, including Susan Stockum, who is here from Florida, and all of us who are a part of American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, try to support an informed process for our clients.

Question/Comment 10: from Linda Clausen, a birthmother and a social worker working in foster care and adoption: Can anyone speak a little more to the time a birthmother is given for relinquishment? I have worked on legislation in Maryland and I am proud to say that our CUB group has kept it at 30 days--but, in doing that, very many times we came up against those opposing us and mostly it's been adoption attorneys. And these attorneys will try to get it to 7 days. It had been 15 days in most places, but when we began looking at this wonderful and informative site on the NIAC website--which now seems to be gone--we suddenly found that the period had gone, almost overnight, in most states, to 0 days. It seems to be adoption attorneys who did this. Can you tell us anymore about how it got this way?

Susan Livingston Smith

NAIC (National Adoption Information Clearinghouse) is a child welfare information gateway, just to clarify for everyone.
When I did the research for the Evan B. Donaldson paper, I know that there were only 17 states of the 50 which had a revocation period at all. Most of them were shorter rather than 30 days.
I don’t know, but I believe that in conflicts of interest in adoption, adoptive parents and their representatives have more power and money--in getting laws passed, etc. That's just the way things are right now.
People who do adoption—their fees are paid by adoptive parents. Considering where the money comes from, there is a natural tendency to protect those interests.
Many times you really have to emphasize the ethics of the situation to do a good job of protecting ALL parties' interests.
Agencies that do a good job of protecting birthparents' interests often have separate departments. One department that works with birthparents. One that works with adoptive parents.
And they say that your job is to ‘advocate for expectant parents”—I use the term, “birthparent”—because when I became an adoption social working with birthparents in 1968-1970, we were told our job was with “birthparents.” Looking through the literature, now I know that the term expectant parents should be used, but I often slip and say birthparents.
But you are right—no one is a birthparent until she/he actually signs a document to relinquish.
It takes a highly ethical practitioner to do justice to protect the rights of expectant parents as much as we naturally do adoptive parents. And That’s not because expectant parents aren't just as important.
But I think it's just that expectant parents have less people with power advocating for them.
Until we can balance that, the laws are not going to be fair to everybody.

Fred Greenman

I want to commend Mr. Phillips for what he said and yes, there are ethical adoption attorneys--and yes, I know several of them.
However, we should not have to rely on individual consciences in a situation that pressures people to behave unethically.
We should change the situations so that people will be forced to act ethically.
That's why we have conflict of interest rules.
As an attorney, you don't try to represent birthparents and adoptive parents in the same transaction. Not all attorneys are that scrupulous, unfortunately.
Different states have different rules. The task of discussion like this is to try to formulate rules and laws that would contribute to ethical practice.

US Adoption Agency Employee Charged with Defrauding Agency of More than Half-a-Million Dollars

2007-11-17T23:25:00.000-08:00

A 60 year old woman has been charged with fifteen counts of federal mail fraud and five counts of tax evasion after a Federal investigation revealed that she allegedly stole $600,000 dollars from her employer, the Florence Crittenton Adoption Agency in Lowell, Massachuseutts. According to the Federal prosecutor and investigators, the theft took place over eight years, from December 1998 through April 2006.

Natalie Fleury, who was employed as an office manager and bookkeeper, allegedly "altered checks the agency was issuing to a third-party vendor, made herself the payee, and deposited the checks into a joint checking account she shared with her husband.

Her husband, Thomas E. Fleury, Sr., also 60, who "allegedly also benefited from the proceeds of the fraud," also failed to report the illegal income on the couple's tax returns; he, like his wife, has consequently been indicted with five counts of tax evasion.

The Florence Crittenton Adoption Agency, a private agency located in Lowell, Massachusetts is celebrating its one hundredth anniversary this year. It places about 30 to 40 children per year through international adoption. The board of directors of the agency posted a press release on the Internet after the indictments were made public, part of which is quoted below:

"Today's action by the US Attorney's Office is the latest step in a process that began in April 2006 when a theft from the agency was first discovered. Since that time, this board has been working diligently to assist in the federal investigation; to put in place accounting safeguards to prevent future thefts; and to take whatever steps are necessary to recover the missing funds.

...The board of directors has implemented numerous safeguards to prevent any future theft through the misappropriation of agency funds. Those steps include new financial procedures, certified by an independent accounting expert, that include better oversight by multiple parties and duplicative sign-off on spending from only a single account. In addition, an executive board closely reviews monthly financial statements.

....It was perhaps our focus on families, and not finances, that provided the opportunity for this violation of trust

...We thank the US Attorney's Office and the US Postal Inspectors who answered our call for assistance and worked tirelessly and professionally in the pursuit of justice. We thank our families and our friends for their continued support as we navigate the agency through this difficult period."

The moral of the story...Money must be watched closely if it is not to have a life of its own apart from its original intended use. If it takes extreme diligence here in this country within a small agency to keep money where its supposed to be and working for its intended use, how much more difficult it is to keep money where its supposed to be and working for its original intended use--and not another--overseas with partner agencies and IA facilitators.

Desiree

Woman is accused of defrauding agency, The Boston Globe, 16 November 2007

Couple accused in fraud, tax evasion, Bostonherald.com, 16 November 2007

Chelmsford woman charged with stealing $600K from adoption charity, The Boston Globe, 15 November 2007

Statement from The Florence Crittenton Adoption Agency: ADOPTION AGENCY CARRIES ON DESPITE THEFT, ADOPTIONS UNAFFECTED; Press Release: Statement of the Board of Directors of the Florence Crittenton League Adoption Agency, November 2007

US Agency Investigated for Forgeries in Russian Adoptions

2007-11-16T06:10:00.000-08:00

Children's Hope International is an adoption agency based in Missouri with offices in Missouri, Arizona, California, Illinois, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington that did over 700 international adoptions last year. It is being investigated by seven states after authorities discovered that two employees were allegedly forging official documents being sent to Russian authorities.

The forgeries were discovered in July, when authorities in Arkansas received correspondence from Russian adoption officials, seeking additional information. However, the adoption officials in Arkansas had no record of the initial correspondence that prompted the Russian letter.

A few days of research revealed that the letter from Arkansas was really mailed from the offices of Children's Hope International. A wide search was conducted, and eventually, Children's Hope International's director, Dwyatt Gantt, admitted that ten documents were forged, affecting 7 states.

However, during a meeting with Tennessee adoption authorities, Gant is quoted as saying the forgeries went on for years, and were "widespread."

--from KSDK Newschannel 5's online report

According a TV news report, two Children's Hope International employees who worked out of the Missouri office, Mareda Eckert and Sue Ellison, had allegedly been copying the official letterhead of authorities in several states, writing the documents that Russia required, and then forging the signatures of the appropriate state officials. The documents would then be sent to Russia as some of the official paperwork required to complete a Russian adoption. It is unclear if the improprieties also included the use of notarization on these documents. Dwyatt Gantt's official statement about the affair, printed on Children Hope International's website would seem to imply that it might. Gantt there states that "two employees...were found to have mishandled paperwork which included the wrong use of notaries."

According to news reports, the documents involved "were used to assure Russian authorities that any children sent here would be properly care for."

The alleged forgeries involved documents made to look like they had come from officials in Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas.

Investigations in these states, some ongoing, have included hearings to determine whether CHI should lose its adoption license in these states and to determine whether criminal charges should be pursued.

The two Children's Hope International employees involved were fired a month after the alleged forgeries were discovered.

International Children's Hope Director Dwyatt Gantt has chosen to downplay the seriousness and significance of the forgeries. On a TV interview he stated that the alleged forgeries were, "foolish and misguided, but not malicious--not self serving on [the employees'] part."

In addition to Gant's official web-published statement, "A Message from Children's Hope International" on the affair, Children's Hope International has also sent out letters seeking to reassure current and former clients, and delineating what CHI had to done to alleviate the situation:

"As a result of Children's Hope being upfront and proactive, we have been assured by Missouri DFS and all states where investigations are complete, that we have handled this in the correct manner, and we have been ensured this will not adversely affect our work in these states."

He assures all that "this matter is already nearing resolution," stating that only two states have yet to put the matter to rest: Kansas and Illinois.

But according to news reports, things may not yet be as resolved as Gantt would have them be. In Missouri where CHI is based, a local TV station reports:

Missouri adoption regulators knew about the forgeries in August, after calls from other states. However, after an investigation, it was decided that Children's Hope International would not be sanctioned, and would keep its license.

Susan Shelton, a manager in the state Children's Division of the Missouri Department of Social Services, said on October 25, that police and prosecutors had not been contacted to investigate the forgery. However, on October 30, Shelton's bosses decided to contact police about the case.

That occurred after Missouri State Senator John Loudon, a Republican from Ballwin, started asking about what happened. Loudon is a long time adoption advocate, who is concerned that the forgeries could affect future adoptions of Russian children. Loudon wants a full investigation, and says Missouri must come clean with the Russians.

As for Russia....Russian authorities are already on edge with the American adoption of Russian children. Russians are concerned about:

A long string of cases in which Russian adoptees have suffered abuse and even death--14 Russian children killed to date--at the hands of American adoptive parents
The Masha Allen case in which a US adoption agency placed a Russian five year old with a pedophile and then failed to check up on her for nearly five years (fabricating one post placement report and doing another by phone) so that the child was abused for five years and became the unwilling "star" of illegal child pornography (Masha's photos are among the confiscated images in at least 50% of child pornography prosecutions).
The failure of many US adoption agencies to take seriously Russia's post adoption reporting requirements

Keeping Russia open to Americans for adoption has become an increasingly politically difficult and unpopular feat within Russia and the Russian government. This new problem can not help US-Russian adoption relations. But, so far at least, Russian authorities have restrained themselves:

Russian authorities are aware of the forgeries, but have not reacted in any way.

Perhaps they are waiting to see just how seriously America takes the corruption of adoption--whether we will see that wrongdoing is taken seriously and whether wrongdoers are investigated, sanctioned, and punished--all as a deterrent for future misconduct.

Or, instead, whether the aura surrounding international adoption will once again whitewash and downgrade all wrongdoing into an easily excused mush of well-meaning mistakes and oversights and sniveling explanations.....I mean really, it doesn't really make that much difference anyway, does it...I mean we're talking about saving orphans here....

What wouldn't be tolerated anywhere else and that would be stringently punished once again passes into relative insignificance in the glow of the absolute good that is adoption.

Would that those who excuse such indiscretions and corruption could see that each time such things are excused and passed over, it weakens international adoption further and makes clear that is it lacking in character, ethics, and accountability. International adoption will eventually be killed by such failing to take seriously these problems.

It will be a truly awful thing if Russian adoption closes because Americans refuse take adoption corruption seriously. If any children in the world are truly in need of adoption, it is the adoption eligible children languishing in Russian orphanages.

Desiree

Text:
Adoption Agency At Center Of Investigation; KDSK News Channel 5; St. Louis, Missouri; 13 November 2007

Video:
Adoption Agency At Center Of Investigation; KDSK News Channel 5; St. Louis, Missouri; 13 November 2007

Explanation from Children's Hope:
"A message from Children’s Hope Director," Dwyatt Gantt, 14 November 2007

Council of Europe Urges Respect for Rights of Children and Refutes the "Right to a Child"

2007-11-13T17:31:00.000-08:00

Last week the Council of Europe published the following press release:

PACE Social Affairs Committee Urges Respect for Children’s International Adoption Rights and Refutes the ‘Right to a Child’

Strasbourg, 8.11.2007 - “The point of international adoption is to enable a child to find parents, with respect for his or her rights, not to satisfy the parent’s wish to have a child at all costs: there is no such thing as the right to a child!” This was the conclusion reached today by Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold (Switzerland, SOC), speaking on behalf of the Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee, at a meeting of the committee in Paris.

In her report, which is based on fact-finding visits to Ukraine and Moldova, Mrs Vermot-Mangold firmly condemns the increasing use of alternative circuits that can encourage the disappearance of newborn babies for illegal adoption in Europe. She denounces the fully-fledged traffic in babies in Moldova, where 61 cases came before the criminal courts in 2006. In Ukraine the Rapporteur had noted cases of children disappearing at birth, with hospital administrators telling their mothers that they were stillborn, whereas in fact they are presumed to have been sold for adoption.

These practices of stealing and selling children, particularly newborn babies, have been facilitated by the lack of strict civil status regulations in some countries. The Committee said today when adopting Mrs Vermot-Mangold’s report on the disappearance of new-born babies for illegal adoption in Europe.

This is why the committee is calling for, at national level, the introduction of clear laws governing family rights and, at international level, a review of the Convention on Intercountry Adoption, bearing in mind the interests and rights of the child, in order to establish mechanisms for the strict control of adoption rules. “In the absence of national solutions, this will ensure a better life for quite a few children, and avoid situations such as recently occurred in Chad,” said Mrs Vermot-Mangold.

The report is due to be discussed by PACE at its winter session (21-25 January 2008).

Desiree

Council of Europe Press Release 761 (2007): PACE Social Affairs Committee urges respect for children’s international adoption rights and refutes the ‘right to a child’,Council of Europe Press Division, 8 November 2007

India's Rules on Adoption Fees and Donations

2007-11-11T19:50:00.000-08:00

A rule is only as good as it is enforced. What good is an adoption rule that is intended to curb child trafficking when that rule is not followed and when no government takes any action when the rule is regularly broken?

India’s Rules on Adoption Fees and Donations

CARA is the central authority in India that regulates intercountry adoptions from India. Since 2006, CARA’s guidelines contain two specific rules about adoption fees and donations:

(1) CAP ON FEES: In intercountry adoption, an adoption fee of a fixed amount of U.S. $3,500 is payable by prospective adoptive parents to the Indian placement agency through the U.S. agency. See Section 5.17(a) of CARA’s Guidelines.

This fee is an “outer limit” of recoverable expenses that may be reviewed for cost of living increases once every five years.

The recoverable expenses the fee is supposed to cover include the cost involved in providing quality child care, medical and legal services, passport, visa, payment towards professional staff, monitoring, correspondence, preparation of child study reports, medical reports, etc.

(2) NO DONATIONS: CARA’s rules are clear that no donation should be received by an Indian placement agency either from a foreign prospective adopted parent or from a foreign adoption agency. Section Section 5.17(b).

CARA’s Guidelines state that if the Indian Placement agency charges excess fees, CARA may suspend or withdraw its license to do intercountry adoption and may recommend the agency for criminal prosecution.

If the foreign adoption agency induces an Indian placement agency by offering more money than the prescribed fees, CARA may de-enlist that foreign agency with a recommendation that the agency be prosecuted as per the law of that country.

CARA’s guidelines with respect to the maximum permissible adoption fees and donations were derived from the India Supreme Court directives outlined in LK Pandey v. Union of India, 2 S.C.C. 244 (India Supreme Court 1984). The restrictions on fees and donations were formulated expressly to safeguard against the "profiteering and trafficking of children." See LK Pandey, 2 S.C.C. at 264, 270, 273. This objective also lies at the heart of the Hague Convention.

Earlier this year, CARA issued draft revised guidelines. It is expected that CARA will issue final rules effective January 1, 2008. In anticipation of the rules changing, this post records existing U.S. agency practice regarding fees and donations for India adoption programs.

U.S. Agency Practice

Set forth below is each of the U.S. agencies listed on CARA’s website that is currently licensed to place children from India that has information about its India program on its website (even if the India program is on hold). Linked to each agency name is the part of its website that discloses fees and donations for its India program (if any).

Agencies that do not publish fee information on its websites:

The following agencies do not publish information about its fees on their websites:

Love Basket

Children’s House International

Alliance for Children, Inc.

Hope Adoption & Family Services International, Inc.

Crossroads Adoption Services

Americans for International Aid and Adoption

Bal Jagat Children’s World Inc.

International Families Inc.

ACCEPT An Adoption and Counselling Centre

Children of the World, Inc. International Adoption and Relief Agency

The Barker Foundation

Commonwealth Adoptions International, Inc.

International Family Services

Hope Cottage, Inc.

Hope for Children

Wide Horizons for Children, Inc.

Agencies with published fee information on their websites:

The following CARA-licensed agencies contain information about fees on their websites:

Illien Adoptions International, Inc.

Lists a country fee of $9,000

Children’s Home Society & Family Services
India Program Fees consist of:

$3,500 for child care/maintenance/legal fees

$5,000 for “CARA approved and CHSFS approved International Child Welfare Projects”

Holt International Children’s Services

Adoption Program fee: $8,190.

Bay Area Adoption Services International Adoption

Lists partnering agency fees as ranging from $6,000-$10,000

Holy Cross Child Placement Agency, Inc.

India processing fee: $3,000 – $9,000 (varies based on Indian orphanages)

MAPS International

Indian foreign program fee: $4,500 (includes “orphanage donations”)

Journeys of the Heart Adoption Services

India Program Maintenance Fee -- $2,000

Contributions (Mandatory) -- $5,000. For “humanitarian relief projects which Journeys supports in India (paid to regulated non-profits for child nurturing, vocational training and such, i.e. Care and Share, or Hands to Hearts International.)”

Orphanage Fee (varies by orphanage) -- $2,500 - $3,500

Families Thru International Adoption

International Fees: $9,000. “Fees for child investigations, attorney, legal/court costs, recognized Indian placement agencies (orphanages) as allowed by CARA, passport, staff in India, maintenance of program, licensing, DHL, phone, fax, and assistance when families travel. FTIA provides support for welfare projects so that part of every international fee is a donation.”

World Association for Children & Parents (WACAP)
Lists no separate India program fee. Instead, total costs are:

Application fee: $250

Initial processing fee: $4,000

2nd processing fee: $4,000

Final adoption fee: $4,000

Adoptions from the Heart

In-country orphanage child maintenance process: $3,500

Support of child welfare programs: $3,500 (“This covers the donation to the Child Welfare Programs to support orphanages throughout the country.”). Preet Mandir, an orphanage in Pune India, is the only charity mission listed on this agency’s website.

Dillon International, Inc.

International Fee -- $3,500

Maintenance support fee -- $1,450

Children of India, Inc.

India Program Fee: Listed as $3,500 for non-resident Indians. Not published for non-NRIs. Website notes that some orphanages accept less than the CARA approved amount of $3,500.

Questions
The fee information described above raises a number of questions:

Why don't all agencies list fee information on their websites? Is there a “best practices” approach for transparency of fees charged by U.S. agencies?

Of the amounts of foreign fees in excess of $3,500, how much goes to Indian orphanages contrary to CARA guidelines?

Regardless of what is listed by a U.S. agency as its international, program or foreign fee, how much does the agency actually remit to its Indian partners (for example, do agencies remit amounts that come out of its own administrative portion of agency fees)?

Why do some U.S. agencies permit and in most cases require prospective adoptive parents to pay fees and donations that are prohibited by CARA guidelines?

Why is no action taken against Indian placement agencies or U.S. agencies for routinely violating CARA’s guidelines governing fees and donations?

Are there any U.S. agencies that can publicly account for the portion of adoption fees it charges that go to India? That go to any country?

Usha

Part I of Accountability to Families of Origin: Before Adoption: Protecting the Rights of Vulnerable Families--Workshop 1.2

2007-11-06T19:50:00.000-08:00

The following are detailed notes. They do not constitute the exact words of the speakers, but a--hopefully accurate--summary of the ideas. If any of the panelists or attendees take issue with any of these summaries, please let me know so that I can correct them.

Because the notes on this Workshop were so lengthy, I divided the notes into separate posts. This post is the first of two from Workshop 1.2.

Desiree

Ethics and Accountability Conference
Sponsored by Ethica and Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute
October 15-16, 2007

Bullet points for discussion during this workshop:

Do current practices, even when handled carefully, create for some expecting women/couples, a sense of obligation to go forward with the adoption?
What are the most appropriate ways to cover expectant mothers' expenses so that risks of coercion or exploitation are minimized or eliminated?
What is the role of open adoption arrangements in planning for adoption? Should contact agreements be explored in all situations? Should they be enforceable?
Is it ethical to search out children to place for adoption and what role should professionals play in this endeavor?

Panelists:

Lynn Franklin is a birthmother who was reunited with her birthson, a book author, a current board member of the Evan B. Donaldson Institute, an eleven year board member of Spence-Chapin, and an elected “lifetime” Honorary Director of Spence-Chapin.

Sania Metzger is director of policy for Casey Family Services, the direct service agency of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. She works to influence and track policies at the local, state, and federal levels. Ms. Metzger is on the Board of Directors for Prevent Child Abuse America and the Center for Family Representation.

Dr. Teresa “Tesi” Kohlenberg M.D.is a child psychiatrist, who had previously worked as a developmental pediatrician with teenage mothers and the urban poor. She is an adoptive parent, a co-founder of Guatemala Adoptive Families Network which promotes ethical practices in Guatemalan adoption, and finally a contributor to various adoption books.

Annette Appell is a law professor who has authored multiple articles, books chapters, etc. on adoption. She serves on the editorial board of the Juvenile and Family Court Journal and the Adoption Quarterly, and has extensive experience representing representing children and parents involved with the child welfare system, including providing legal representation in termination of parental rights cases and adoption proceedings.

Lynn Franklin: Opening Remarks

As a society we have a responsibility to families who are at risk of becoming “families of origin”
- that responsibility is one of practice, not just of rhetoric
Ethics must include sensitivity to race & economic factors in both IA and domestic settings
I’ve heard a lot of stories, but one that sticks with me that is germaine to the current topic is this one: I had returned from Columbia and was telling a US "adoption professional" about conversations with birthmoms in Columbia, when the US adoption worker said in surprise::
- “Oh, I guess I haven’t thought of them [the Columbian birthmothers]like OUR birthmothers.”

Do we think of women in these (other) sending countries in a different light?
- Certainly many in private adoption don’t consider women in the public welfare system to be like “our birthmothers” either.
We really need address the cultural and economic forces that operate in all forms of adoption
The mother who relinquishes in Columbia isn’t fundamentally different from birthmothers in the private US system or the public welfare system.
The mission must be for providers to provide quality services.

Sania Metzger

There is a documented need for birthmothers from indigent families for legal representation in the Child Welfare System (CWS) process
- The TV show, Judging Amy, as good as it was, never had an episode that focused on inadequacy of legal representation of birthparents in the Child Welfare System (CWS)

Federal /State policies
- Mandate the termination of parental rights if the allegations/issues against the parent by CWS aren’t resolved
- The process to terminate parental rights is set into motion early in the process with CWS
- Yet these parents who are at risk for losing their parental rights are not given quality legal representation
- It’s a serious ethical issue that the statutes that threaten to take away parental rights do not also provide them with legal representation

Parent may face a termination of parental rights, but there is no balancing act to provide legal representation of parents who stand to their rights lose rights
- we value the process to sever rights
- but we don’t value a fair process or making sure that parents’ rights in the process are protected

There ought to be moral outrage at this situation,
- and yet we don’t see or hear it and that concerns me.

The American CWS process removes children from their families and promises to give them new ones
- Children who are abused and neglected enter the system,
- and move forward in a process that ultimately results in the severance of parental rights
- This system holds out the promise that these children will be adopted
- And yet many aren’t adopted

The American CWS severs parental rights and holds out the promise of new homes
- In 2002, there were129,000 legal orphans (children whose parents had had their parental rights severed) in the US system
- These kids become orphans through the Child Welfare System
  - Not because of wars, or natural disasters, or HIV, or other catastrophes
  - These kids are orphans because we severed parental rights
  - So that the kids could be adopted into families that legally speaking, could “better” care for them
- We terminate parental rights with the HOPE that children will be placed
- We say to their parents--sorry you can’t raise them, but it will be better for them because they will be raised in a loving family and have the things that children should have
- But we fail to come through for these kids
- Where is the court and child welfare accountability in this?

It is NOT good enough to hold out a promise to child or parent
- Plan to make sure child is raised in loving, caring family
- And then violate that mother’s trust; violate that family’s trust
- The child continues to languish; the child is not adopted

On an annual basis more than 22,000 children who have become orphans through the CWS system exit the system without ever having been given that promised permanence in their lives
- We are failing miserably to place children
- Failing miserably to fulfill promises to parents and children
- The birthparent failed to keep child, but now has to struggle with the painful reality that:
  - Her child not deemed worthy
  - Her child is not adoptable,
  - Her child was never embraced by another loving family.

We, especially those who understand the richness of adoption when it works as it should, should be feeling moral outrage that this is happening. That these children are failing to get homes and that our promises to these parents whose parental rights have been severed have not been kept. This is a serious moral and ethical issue.

WHO are these children/families that we are failing?
- Disproportionately they are people of color and poor people
- The same people who face/have faced historic and current discrimination; structural racism, ethnic discrimination, etc.
- Those involved in CWS processes are disproportionately the poor and persons of color
  - Those whose income is under $15,000 a year are 22 times more likely to be in CWS
  - These are indigent parents who can’t afford legal help
  - They should be getting quality legal representation from the time of the first knock at door of CPS
- Racism and ethnicity overlays WHO is in the system
  - Disproportionately includes those who have experienced historic stereotyping, marginalizing, under representation, and the undervaluation of their families
  - We undervalue families from certain racial and ethnic backgrounds
  - We SHOULD be paying special attention to these children—so they don’t automatically end up in the system

It is a symptom of the problem that we automatically consider children from these families, special needs children simply because of who they are.

Horrendous disproportionality in system
- Inequities begin at front end, but the disparities continue; the disproportionality continues throughout system and process
- Kids Count figures show that on one day--30 Sept 2006:
  - 15% of US kids were African American
  - Yet, 34% in US kids in the Child Welfare System were African American
  - 36% of children in CWS waiting to be adopted were African American
  - Only about 30% of those adopted are African American
- Likewise Native Americans are about 1% of population, 2% waiting of those waiting to be adopted, and only about 1% of those adopted who are adopted

We TALK about adoption and protecting needs of birthparents on front end, but we don’t challenge our ourselves enough
- We present a view of adoption that is one sided
- We separate out from our understanding of adoption and don't speak about the horrendous struggles that indigent birthparents face to contest termination of parental rights petitions from our understanding of adoption

Positive developments
- Several states have new legislation permitting children to petition the court to reinstate their parents' previously severed parental rights
- One of these states is California where legislation was the result of the Jared H case
  - Jared H was a 14 yo child whose mother was substance abuser, and he was deemed to be at risk for coming into the CWS system. In a preemptive move, Jared H asked that his stepfather be allowed to adopt him
  - As a precursor to the anticipated adoption, Jared's mother's parental rights were severed. But then the stepfather adoption was not allowed to take place because of “unsanitary conditions in the home.”(that is another issue for another day)
  - Jared H's wish to be raised in the loving family (that he had chosen) was aborted and he was inadvertently thrown into the foster care system where it is now likely that he will remain until he is emancipated (reaches legal adulthood)
  - Unfortunately, the court couldn’t undo the parental rights termination because it had no general legislated mandate to reinstate parental rights that had been severed.
  - The court, realizing the bad situation it was in, subsequently invited the CA legislature to create a law which would allow children to petition the court to reinstate parental rights (when it’s safe to do so).
    - The CA legislature responded with the 8519 legislation which allows for a child to bring a petition before the court to have his/her parental rights reinstated
    - This is an attempt to deal with creation of orphans in this country without the corresponding ability to place children in adoptive homes

Model programs for providing quality legal services to families who come into the CWS system
- Center for Family Representation, in NY City
  - Attorney working out of an office with an interdisciplinary staff
    - Parent advocate, paralegals, investigative staff, caseworkers, etc.
  - Contrast this with the usual legal representation (when it happens) of an attorney "working out of a briefcase" and often meeting his/her client for the first time in the courtroom
  - Better outcomes result because the representation begins earlier, often before petition is filed
  - Program has reduced numbers of kids who need to be removed from their homes
    - Of 51 cases handled by center, in 32 of them children were able to remain in the home or be reunited with parents shortly after the process began

Parent advocacy as a developing trend that I recommend that we support
- Team decision making that involves bringing parents to the table
- Parents SHOULD be there when important decisions are being made concerning their children
- Including parents shows respect for those in the system and those whose rights are at risk of being terminated
- We should be supportive of the rights of parents to maintain appropriate ties with their children as long as it's safe to do so

Tesi Kohlenberg
(Tesi provided a printed handout with bullet points which I am seeking permission to reprint on fleasbiting)

When my husband and I started the process to adopt from Guatemala, we spent a number of months researching the situation and we thought we knew what was going on in Guatemala with our adoption. We thought we'd be:
- adopting a child whose parent truly couldn’t care for her, parents who had truly and freely chosen adoption for their child
- a part of a system that was helping women
And to some degree we were

We had been in correspondence with Bruce Harris at Casa Alianzaand he had assured me that ethical adoption from Guatemala was possible
I knew a lot (from working with teen mothers in NY and Boston for 15 years) about the effects of chronic poverty, racism, substance abuse, and trauma on decision-making
I also knew something about the US role in Guatemala’s 36 year civil war and the genocidal attacks on the native Maya, and the effects these things might have had on the people who would be the parents of my child
I had some doubts, but preadoptive parent hope and longing tended to override those doubts
In the past 8 years I have learned a lot more

The more I learn, the more race, culture, and class stand out as the key issues behind ethical problems in adoption both domestically and internationally—the same issues play in both
Our relationship with my daughter’s birthmother has put my mind to rest to some degree
But I also know too many people whose adoptive children were stolen or sold or whose children’s first mothers were coerced into relinquishing
The shadow of this fact falls on all of us adoptive parents even if we know that our own adoptions were relatively clean
Ethical issues in IA are the same ones as in domestic adoption, only more so. -
- The disparities--the power differential issues--are worse in IA than domestically
- Relinquishing families in IA are most often poor,illiterate,and disenfranchised
- Desperate poverty leads people to do truly desperate things
  - The level of desperation distinguishes poor people in other countries from people in this country. This has to be acknowledged.
In most IA sending countries:
- The rule of law is weak
- Families have little recourse if they are victims of unethical adoption practice
- Many families may face retribution if they do report crimes
In most traditional sending country societies, orphanages are traditionally a part of a temporary care system (Vietnam, Cambodia, India)
- Families place their children temporarily and some return to find that their children have been adopted out overseas
Many sending countries are recovering from war—often wars financed by the US
- Traditional cultural structures that might have been called upon to support families under stress have been eroded and compromised
What rights are we talking about? Basic human rights, such as:
- Food, housing, healthcare, work,
- Freedom from an atmosphere of war, persecution, and violence
- Civil rights; equality across racial, gender, class, caste, etc.
  - Not achieved here, but significantly worse in sending countries
- Access to supports for vulnerable populations are often nonexistent in many sending countries
  - Access to a functioning justice system for remediation should something bad happen
- Psychological rights in adoption: the rights to connection, belonging, continuity,identity, recognition by society of your value, ability of adopted persons to have access to their families of origin when it makes sense
- The most basic human rights for children as enumerated in the Convention on the rights of the Child

There are big questions about how these rights play out in international adoption
- Do we believe that women in poor countries have the same rights of choice over what happens to their children as are given to them in developed nations?
- Do we believe that nations have rights—almost property rights of a sort—in their children that supercede a woman’s right to decide where her child grows up?
- How meaningful are our ideas of the rights of families for families living in a different cultural context in which they don’t have access to the most basic civil human rights?
- Can we or should insist on those rights when they are not culturally understood and can we asked that they be enacted between persons who are interacting in a culture different than our own?
- Can we ascribe these rights to people who are fundamentally powerless?
These are issues to think about—I don’t have easy answers—only questions.

A story about powerlessness and cultural disconnect: When we went to Guatemala to meet our daughter’s family (after we had pushed consistently to be able to do so)we finally met with the mother and mother’s sister—-We asked her, "What would you like us to tell our daughter when she is older about why you chose adoption for her?"
- My daughter's Guatemalan birthmother looked straight at me and at my white husband who is 6 ft 3 and blond (and who looks like a kindly Viking),and said that she hoped the girl would never need to know that she was adopted.
Guatemala is in crisis. There are not enough publicly funded orphanages in Guatemala. Most orphanages are privately funded. There is some domestic adoption. Domestic adoption in Guatemala is private, informal, and easy, but it can’t provide for all the children who need help. Private orphanages and the private relinquishment system (funneling children into IA)handles the vast majority of cases.
- The strengths of a private relinquishment system are:
  - Maternal choice
  - Excellent foster care
  - Babies finding homes relatively quickly at young ages
- The Problems with a private relinquishment system are:
  - It's very vulnerable to corruption
  - It's very vulnerable to develop unethical and illegal practices
- Many of us are in agony about this
The situation is this: There is a rapidly increasing demand for adoptable newborn babies and so
- A class of baby finders has sprung up who are paid a great deal to locate babies
- Finders are paid between $6,000 and $10,000 per baby
- And so they produce, find, or locate babies for adoption
- In a significant nontrivial proportion of the cases, the finders are paying a portion of that finder’s fee to Guatemalan parents to relinquish their children (payments are at initial relinquishment and final signature)
  - Parents are being paid anywhere from a few hundred dollars up to $3,000 to relinquish their children
  - In a country where a third of the population lives on $2 a day or less, this is money to provide a powerful incentive for relinquishment

Guatemala is unusual in IA because contact between adoptive and first families is possible, although it is often discouraged and sabotaged by the Guatemalan adoption attorneys
- AP’s who make contact with Guatemalan birthfamilies, and there are something on the order of 500 of us now, usually find that adoption is truly what the first mothers chose for their children. They felt it was what was needed and what was best for the child. This fact is really important to note in the context of these other stories which follow. We are finding that:
  - Some women were coerced to relinquish by their male partners
  - Some women are also often coerced by adoption workers (I will NOT call them “adoption professionals”)
  - Some extended families would have wanted to parent the child but were not given the option by the mother
  - Some Guatemalan women are even getting pregnant repeatedly in order to earn a living selling by selling their babies
  - There is some involvement in adoption by gangs that run guns and drugs
  - There are reliable reports that women who change their minds during the waiting period are told that they must pay back the monetary costs of childcare for their child during the waiting period and also any money they had been previously given (which is illegal) and because they don't have the money, are not getting their babies back
- NO one is sure how widespread these problems are
  - But the US Embassy says these problems are “frequent”
- No one knows whether of those mothers who receive money at relinquishment--the money was the reason they relinquished their children or whether the money simply represented something good that happened to them in the midst of tragedy
  - And as for money, Guatemalans have often said, "Why does everyone else get money and the mother doesn’t?" I have my own answer as to why they shouldn’t, but I understand the psychology behind the question.
The crisis in Guatemala right now has its roots
- In seriously unethical practices,
- The intransigence and denial of agencies (and their representatives in Guatemala) that have steadfastly denied that there has ever been an ethical problem
- The polarization of the dialogue in which both UNICEF and Casa Alienza have played a role by painting an extreme and unrealistic pictures of what is going on in Guatemala
Solutions that are being looked at now are politically attractive in the abstract, but are likely to close the country to IA in practice
Adoption has become a business bringing powerful amounts of money into poor countries.
- If adoption funds leak into excess profits, unethical practice can practically be guaranteed.
  - Even in China where there is less structural vulnerability than in Guatemala, we are learning of adoption corruption and child abduction.
This all can not be stopped without bringing about profound social changes beyond the scope of this panel. In terms of vulnerable families, we can not protect them without first ensuring the rights of families to survival and social justice
We need to be working hard to minimize the need for international adoption.
- The steps I recommend to work towards this are laid out in the handout.
However, until social justice and human rights are addressed, the right of a child to grow up in a stable and loving family must still be honored and set higher than abstractions about systems.
- For this to happen ethically in countries beset by poverty and corruption, we and our adoption representatives will have to be very careful indeed.

To read notes from the rest of this session see Part II of Accountability to Families of Origin: Before Adoption: Protecting the Rights of Vulnerable Families of Origin--Workshop 1.2

Desiree